Retrieval Saga: The Omnitrix Ordeal
by Cydra
Summary: When the Shadow Hawk is attacked by Ectonurites in the Null Void. Matt and the gang meet up with the Tennysons. Now they have to deal with several bad guys both around them and within them. Xover with Ben 10.
1. Crash Stop

**Fall off Disclaimer from Largefish8: The T-X's original idea is property of Columbia pictures and Warner bros and sadly not my idea.**

**Retrieval Saga**

**The Omnitrix Ordeal**

**Chapter 1: Crash Stop**

**Nullspace Badland Sector G-51**

Matt wandered around the corridors of the Shadow Hawk, bored. He'd drawn the short straw and was stuck with the night watch. It had been a week since the battle in New York and the crew had gotten back to the old routine of catching Virus clones and fighting Emperor Hamsterviel's lackeys. They did have some extra help though as Techo had decided to tag along too (though Matt suspected this was just so he wouldn't have to help repair CPS HQ).

Most of the experiments were fast asleep. Their antennas and fingers twitched a bit in their sleep. However in the room Draco and Chip were sharing with Rick, Akira, and Morph, they were both wide awake. They were trying to determine which of them was superior over the other in one of the most gruelling of all competitions. "You have to blink sometime, you rascal," said Chip. "You're not winning this one," said Draco, "I've got my eyes on you." They heard Rick mutter in his sleep, "Why yes, a vanilla soufflé would hit the spot right now," then Rick started chewing on his pillow. "Rick wouldn't know a good soufflé if it bit him," said Chip, trying to distract Draco.

Suddenly Rick let out a cry of pain and jumped out of his bed. His cry woke up the others in the room except Morph, who had a pair of earmuffs on. "What's going on?" asked Akira. "Something bit me!" cried Rick. "You mean something's biting you," said Draco. Clamped onto Rick's patookie with a leech-like mouth was a strange little red alien. "What is that thing?" asked Akira. "That's a Havoc Beast," said Chip as he grabbed onto the creature, "they like to gnaw on anything they can get their mouths around." With a little help from Draco, the Havoc Beast was removed. "How'd it get here?" asked Rick, rubbing his sore bottom. "I have no idea," said Draco, "but I know where it's going." He and Chip carried the little monster out of the crew's quarters and towards the airlock.

Matt walked into the bridge room to look at the scanners again. A small red light got his attention. "Who's calling us way out here?" he muttered flicking the switch. A male voice with a dull tone spoke over the speaker.

"Warning! You have entered a restricted sector known as the Null Void. Alter your heading immediately." it intoned slowly. Matt was up and at the controls as soon as 'Null Void' was mentioned. The place was worse then the Bermuda triangle for vanishing ships or even worse…the ships sometimes returned with what remained of the crew as gibbering wrecks.

Matt pulled a hard left, causing most of the sleeping crew to have a rude awakening as they were thrown out their beds. Chris was first into the bridge. "What the smeg are you doing, Matt?" he asked angrily, a black eye visible.

"We're in trouble if I don't turn the ship round now," said Matt and added, "I think we're in the Null Void…we set off one of the warning beacons at some point."

Draco and Chip reached the airlock and threw the Havoc Beast inside. They slammed it shut and pressed the button that opened the door on the other side. The Havoc Beast was sucked out the door by the change in pressure. "We ought to report this to Matt," said Draco. "I agree," said Chip. Then a voice made a strange noise behind them, "Me, me, me, me."

Draco and Chip turned around and saw Morph with his eyes closed and his arms outstretched. Morph snored and made the strange noise again, "Me, me, me, me." Morph walked past Draco and Chip without noticing and headed towards the wall. Instead of stopping, Morph put his foot on the wall and started walking up it. "He's sleepwalking," said Chip, "that only happens if there are spectral disturbances around." "How do you know?" asked Draco. "Remember that time we went spent a night in that haunted house?"

_Flashback:_ Both Draco and Chip were standing in front of a portrait of a creepy old man. "You know," said Draco, "they say his spirit walks these halls." "That's ridiculous," said Chip. Suddenly the man in the portrait pulled out a hammer and whacked Chip on top of the head. Moments later, Morph sleepwalked past with a pair of scissors sticking into the back of his head. _End flashback._

"So you're saying that there may be ghosts around here?" asked Draco. "Perhaps not ghosts, but something that's ghostly or undead," said Chip. "Maybe something with one eye, long arms, and an opening chest?" asked Draco. "Ha, ha, very funny Draco," said Chip. But then Chip noticed that Draco wasn't looking at him, but a porthole above his head. Chip looked up at it and saw a skull-like face with one purple eye. "Ectonurite!" they both cried and ran towards the bridge. Chip came back real quickly to grab Morph who was on the ceiling.

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Matt was busy steering through the soup-like nebula the ship was in when Draco and Chip rushed in, still holding the snoring Morph. "Yes I know I woke you up…" started Matt but was interrupted by Chip.

"We may have a slight problem," said Chip urgently. Matt wasn't paying attention as he tried to find the way out of the strange nebula the ship had gotten stuck in. "Yeah…we're stuck in one of the most dangerous sectors of the Badlands…" he said turning to look at Chip then noticing the experiment and continuing "…That's not the problem…is it," he said just as the security console lit up like a 4th of July fireworks display, every screen showing intruder alert followed by a picture of where the alerts were.

Chris got there first in time to see and an Ectonurite phase through the hull into the canteen, shorting out some of the wall lights. "It's just those Ghost aliens you met on Nocturnus…I thought they were on our side?" he said. At this point another of the Ectonurites phased in via the environmental control console causing it to explode in sparks and plunging the bridge into gloom.

The Ectonurite fired a purple beam at Chris first, knocking him over. "I don't think so," said Matt drawing his blaster and aiming, ignoring Draco's cry of "Wait!" This was said with good reason. All the energy bolts passed harmlessly through the Ectonurite, who phased though the bridge doors deeper into the ship.

Matt looked at what was left of the bridge. Given that he'd once attacked 627 when the experiment had spat on the ship's hull, his brain was in shock. Draco waved a hand in front of him. "I think his brain's broken," he said. Chris whacked Matt on the back of the head which caused Matt to yell "I'LL KILL THOSE LITTLE VANDALS!" before getting out his ion staff and running out the bridge, not even waiting for the door to open and just slicing it out the way instead.

Morph therefore, woke up to see Chip, Draco and Chris staring at the wrecked door open-mouthed from Matt's outburst. The sound of fighting as the rest of the crew were woken by the invading Ectonurites could be heard. "Erm…What did I miss?" he asked.

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The experiments and Matt were trying valiantly to get the Ectonurites off the Shadow Hawk but every attack was simply avoided and was returned with interest in the form of one of the beams, the Ectonurites being at full strength since the one on the bridge had fried the lighting controls.

Now the aliens were heading for the core room. "If they knock out the core like they're doing to everything else, we'll lose life support," said Matt to Draco, taking a pot shot at an Ectonurite chasing Reuben and for once hitting the distracted alien, the blast knocking it into a wall.

Draco used his psychic powers to cause another Ectonurite to turn solid enough for Stitch to grab hold of and beat up. "From what I hear, Ectonurites don't people invading their territory with lots of light. That's probably why they're attacking. And they're not the remorseful sort."

Matt ran into the core room first and stopped dead. "What is it?" said Chris fearing the worst and saw Techo snoring in one of the seats, apparently oblivious to the small war breaking out on the ship. "I knew he slept deeply but…" said Matt before shouting in Techo's ear "WAKE UP!" causing the sleeping merc to fall backwards. "What's going on? YAAAAH!" said Techo, screaming as an Ectonurite phased through the floor in front of him only to be blasted, psy-blasted and in Morph's case, hit with a hammer from the Tech-Pack back through the floor.

"I wish I was still sleeping," said Techo with feeling before running out the core room to find some more experiments to help.

While they waited for Techo, some more experiments appeared. They were Lilo, Stitch, and Kala. "Guys," said Matt, "I'm not sure how long it'll take Techo to get back here. But till then, we have to keep those ghosts away from the core or we're gonna die." "Ectonurites can't stand too much light," said Chip, "perhaps Contrinus could help out." "Where is she?" asked Chris. "She's trying to help Techo in the bridge," said Draco. "That's not exactly where we want him to be right now," said Lilo.

Suddenly, someone knocked and Morph peeked out. "Oh, hello 627, come on in, nice eyeliner you're wearing." "Eyeliner?" asked Stitch as 627 walked in. There were black groves around 627's eyes and his eyes had purple irises. "He's possessed!" yelled Draco and zapped him with a bolt of electricity. An Ectonurite came out of him and fled the room. "I think I know another reason they're attacking us," said Chip.

An Ectonurite, despite the efforts of the experiments, Chris, and Matt managed to touch the glowing crystals of the core, causing them to begin crackling with purple energy lightning. "Oh…smegging hell," said Matt worriedly.

The Ectonurites began to leave at speed and a shutter blocked the core room door. "Not good," said Matt, struggling to open it. The core was beginning to let out a whining noise and the air began to taste a bit like copper. Matt, who had used direct jump engines before recognised the signs and said, "Well…at least we'll get a vacation."

The crystals suddenly jolted to a stop and a purple wave of energy engulfed the room's inhabitants.

**Somewhere in Nevada…**

The desert sun was sinking towards the horizon when the air 10 feet above the ground began to crackle and shimmer. Suddenly a large purple wormhole appeared and spat out two humans and seven experiments onto the sand. The portal closed up and disappeared.

Matt sat up and rubbed his head, "Smegging Ectonurites." "Is everyone alright?" asked Chris. "Fine, except having sand where it's not supposed to be," said Stitch and he whacked one side of his head causing sand to come out of his ear in the form of a castle. "Don't worry," said Morph, "this anthill broke my fall." The ants swarmed all over Morph, took a few bites, and then made an unmistakable 'Bleah!' and scurried back into the ground. "I don't taste too good to bugs," explained Morph as he hopped off the anthill, "Where are we?"

Matt checked his NPI (Nullspace Position Identifier) and said, "We're somewhere in western Nevada." He looked around and was what looked like a road side pit stop not too far off. "Maybe someone there can help us," he thought as he started walking over, "or at least give me something to drink."

**Inside the rest stop…**

If Matt had read the dimensional code on the scanner readout more closely he might have been more cautious. The rest stop was the current headquarters of Nullspace weapon dealer and all round evil person; Auric Romanov who was busy showing General Silvia and NegaMorph around his 'Showroom' that was hidden in the storeroom of the rest stop.

"…And here we have the latest from S-125…the SKYNET universe. It's called a T-X apparently. It uses an Anti-matter reactor for power so your 'Traveller' won't be able to explode these. It also has several built-in weaponry systems and was tested to be immune to all current computer viruses," he said in a slight Russian accent, pointing to two strangely insectoid inactive droids.

"Quite impressive…it'd be more impressive if we saw what it was capable of though," said Silvia, looking over the droids. NegaMorph nodded. "Yeah…your other droids are usually ripped apart in a minute by the Resistance," he walked over to a covered NSC stasis tube and was about to pull down the cover when Romanov ran up, blocking him. "Ah, please don't…heh…that's my personal collection," he said nervously only to be pushed aside.

The stasis tube held what seemed like an anthro raptor. It had been badly injured at some point as it had heavy cybernetic modification. Both its hands were mechanical below the elbows with slots around the wrist area that seemed to cover some kind of weaponry and most of the torso was covered with heavy duty battle armour. Its left eye was also cybernetic.

"Were you holding out on us?" said NegaMorph with a smirk that had nothing to do with humour. Silvia however was looking at the creature in horror. "It's a Sy-Yong Mutant," she said before looking at Romanov. "They were all wiped out by the NSC though."

Romanov shrugged. "I find bio-organic weaponry fascinating. The NSC sanitization fleet recovered the original mutant's body and kept it in stasis to stop it regenerating…though as you can see it required a helping hand recovering from my people once I…acquired it," he said walking back and forth in front of it.

"He is called Tuatara…the perfect bounty hunter. I haven't tested him yet but he should be perfectly loyal," he continued. NegaMorph interrupted with, "SHOULD BE? Those things took out a force of the NSC's elite that outnumbered them 3 to1." Further comment was interrupted as Romanov's comm went off. "Yes? What is it?" he said annoyed.

"_Erm…sir? You're not gonna believe who just walked into the bar…" _came the worried voice of the 'barman' on duty…

**In the bar…**

Matt walked through the door into the music filled bar, ignoring some of the stares from the people drinking. He walked up to the bar and poked the guy working there. "Yeah? What can I get…You?" he said, the 'You' part coming out in a squeak. Matt watching in fascination as the guy went pale. "Er…you ok?" he said after a bit.

The barman nodded, "What can I get you sir?" he said. Matt shrugged. "I just wanna know where I am," he said before getting a glimpse of the fridge behind the bar that had several bottles of cola. "And one cola."

The barman seemed very jumpy to Matt as he got the order. He gave Matt the drink and ran down the bar to the service phone. A small mental alarm bell rang as to WHY a bar would need a service phone AND a regular one but he dismissed it.

When the barman didn't return, he pulled some more bottles out the fridge for the others and left some cash and turned to leave…to come face to face with Silvia and NegaMorph.

"The hell?" he said and turned back to see several of the 'regulars' from the bar now holding various NSC issue weapons and, grinning in the doorway to the staff area…

"Romanov? Oh…smeg. Of all the places to run into you…" he said but was interrupted as NegaMorph picked him up and threw him out the window. He slid through the dust until his head hit the gas pumps with a clang. He got up in time to see one of Romanov's men despite what seemed to be objections from Silvia, was aiming a photon pulse gun at him and barely got his plasma shield up before the shot hit, causing the gas pumps to go up in a flower-shaped fireball.

---------------------------------

Not too far off, an RV was speeding along the highway. The old man was humming a tune to himself when the gas station up ahead exploded in a burst of fire. "I think we've got trouble ahead," he said to his two grandchildren in the back. The girl looked up from the pocketbook she was reading and said, "It wouldn't have anything to do with those hitchhikers up ahead would it?" The boy stopped listening to his music player and started twisting the face of his peculiar-looking watch. "Looks like its hero time again," he said. "I don't think it's the hitchhikers' fault," said the grandfather. He smiled as the headlights of the RV illuminated four very familiar faces. "But I think we could use their help."

---------------------------------

Matt groaned as he opened his eyes. He was still in one piece, that's good. Silvia, NegaMorph, and Romanov were coming towards him in a causal, as-you-please manner, that's bad. Silvia won't allow Matt to be killed, that's good. She'll have him sent to Emperor Hamsterviel instead, that's bad.

"Well, well, well," said Romanov. "Just who we were talking about. You have knack for showing up when least expected, don't you." Romanov had two of his men drag Matt up. "Now…Miss Silvia tells me that I cannot kill you…a shame…but your crew…that's different." He glared closely at Matt. "You and your cursed sister stole NS$300,000,000 from me. Tell where it is and my men won't shoot your crew on sight," he said coldly in Matt's ear.

Matt shrugged. "Gave it away," he said and added "Well…most of it." Romanov's eyes twitched slightly and he glared daggers at Matt. "You gave…300 million away…" he said as if trying to fit his brain round the idea. He glared at Silvia "Please get this…Han Solo reject off my property," he said.

"I don't see your ship anywhere near here," said Silvia, turning to Matt. "I, uh, kinda, lost it," said Matt pathetically. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," said Silvia, "captains shouldn't lose their ships. It wouldn't do, would it? Doesn't seem to be your lucky day today, doesn't it?" "Yeah," said Matt, "I wouldn't call meeting three of the worst scum in the universe a good day." Silvia frowned and turned to Romanov, "What is it about the Traveller that makes you particularly angry?"

"Apart from the fact that he stole all my money? He is cocky with himself," said Romanov, "he never stops with insults." Silvia nodded and turned to NegaMorph, "And you?" "Besides the way he throws me around, I'd say his smart mouth," said the Shadow Clone. Silvia smiled and said, "Escort Mr. Lynch back to the ship, but feel free to amputate his voice box if you want." NegaMorph gave her an ear-to-eye grin and reached for Matt's neck with his hand-mouth.

"1 against 15?" called a voice, "Isn't that a bit unfair?" Everyone turned around and saw a 10-year old boy with brown hair, green eyes, a white shirt with black stripes on his front and sleeves, green cargo pants, sneakers, and a peculiar watch on his left wrist. Several of Romanov's men laughed but NegaMorph's pupiled eye widened as he muttered, "Oh no, not him again."

Silvia waved her hand dismissively, "Go back to your sandbox, kid. This is grown-up business." The boy twisted the face of his watch and said, "I can be grown-up when I want to." He slammed the face down and there was a flash of green light. When the light cleared, the boy was replaced by a creature that resembled Frankenstein's monster with several bolts in his torso, two lightning rods on his back, and the logo of the watch on his belt buckle. "But sideburns isn't the only thing Frankenvolt has," said the alien and his lightning rods extended and shot out green lightning at them.

Romanov and his men scattered while Silvia raised her hands just in time, causing the lightning to bend at a right angle and hit NegaMorph instead. "Thanks for that," he said angrily, gently smoking. Matt staggered up and ran for it. Silvia spotted this but already had her hands busy with Frankenvolt, ducking another lightning.

Matt turned to see Romanov's men had come back and dived for cover as they opened fire. "This just isn't my day," he said, checking the charge on his gun. Suddenly there was a cry and one of Romanov's men went by at a flat trajectory to hit the floor about 6 feet away. He peered round to see that Chris and the rest of the crew had turned up.

Chip spoke first as he spotted Ben's and Silvia's fight. "Hey…is that Ben?" he said. "Ben?" asked Matt. "He's a friend of ours," explained Draco. "How'd he turn into that Franken-thingy?" asked Matt. "Have you heard of the Omnitrix?" asked Chip. "The Omni-" Matt stopped and looked back at the two lightning-blasting opponents. "You're telling me that the Omnitrix is on the wrist of a kid?" "Yeah, everyone reacts that way," said Stitch. "I suppose I owe him a favour," said Matt as he extended his Ion staff, "keep Romanov's men busy." As he rushed off, Chip said, "I would like to, but I need a recharging after that Ectonurite invasion." Suddenly a blue lightning bolt from Silvia and a green one from Frankenvolt zapped Chip. "That's the stuff!" he said.

Silvia was being forced into the defensive by Frankenvolt. "NEGAMORPH, YOU LITTLE BLOB…HELP ME!" she shouted jumping out the way of another attack. NegaMorph, who was leaning against a rock on the sidelines, said, "Just wait."

Unfortunately a beeping was then heard. "Aw man, not now," said Ben as the Omnitrix symbol flashed red, followed by a bright flash of the same colour and he was back in human form. Silvia grinned horribly, showing off her experiment fangs. "Oh how the tables have turned," she said, drawing her Ion staff and approaching with NegaMorph. "Hello Ben," said NegaMorph, "long time no see. Looks like you've got some new forms on that watch. The Emperor will be very satisfied when we turn you over."

At that point though, NegaMorph went flying to the side like a freight train had run him over. Silvia rounded to see Matt charging her with his Ion staff out and brought hers up to block his attack just in time. "You just don't know when to quit," she snarled before kicking Matt in the chest and knocking him over.

Matt rolled to the side to avoid her slash downwards and answered, "And you seem very intent on skewering me for someone who wants me alive…" He tried another plasma orb but Silvia used an electricity force shield to send it flying into Romanov's rest stop, much to his displeasure. His men were not having a fun time vs. the experiments and Chris. Draco and Chip were sent behind a car by one blast. "Where are these guys getting these guns?" asked Draco. "I think I might have heard of Romanov, but I can't remember where," said Chip. "So do you stand a chance against these guys?" asked Draco. 627 was knocked aside by several plasma blasts. He got up, yelled, "Evil!" and fried them with several plasma and lightning blasts. "I'd say yes," said Chip.

Matt and Silvia both looked at the blasted Rest Stop and said in unison, "Oops," before turning back to the task at hand...beating the smeg out of each other. "You'd had better hope nothing I bought was destroyed in there," said Silvia. "Just put it on my tab," said Matt. Silvia managed to trip him with her Ion staff and said, "Face it, Matt. On an even playing field, I always win." Matt shrugged and said, "Yeah, that's often happened." Silvia gave Matt a confused look but then an explosion threw Stitch into the air. He flipped a couple of times before landing mouth-first on Silvia's head. Silvia's cries of disgust were muffled by Stitch's jaws over her head. She dropped her staff and tried to tug Stitch off. "That's why I have to build up my side of the field," said Matt getting up.

About that time, NegaMorph had recovered from Matt's attack and noticed Stitch with Silvia's head in his mouth. He grabbed a nearby pipe and said, "Don't worry, Silvia. I'll get him." He ran over and raised the pipe high over his head. Stitch noticed this and jumped off Silvia at the last second. The pipe landed with a clang between Silvia's eyes. Silvia gave off a dazed chuckle and fell to the ground, out cold. "Woops," said NegaMorph, "sorry." Matt quickly grabbed his Ion staff and fired a pulse at NegaMorph. The black blob flew threw the air and landed on top of Romanov.

"Time to go?" asked Stitch. "Yep," said Matt. "Everyone back to the RV!" yelled Stitch. The others stopped fighting and ran off towards the road. Matt looked confused. "RV? What R- Oof!" Matt was interrupted when Chris caught him around the waist and lifted him over his shoulder. "Explain later," Chris huffed. Once everyone was in the Rustbucket, it sped off leaving a cloud of dust behind.

A little while later, Romanov's men were trying to repair the damage that has been done during the battle. Fortunately, the door leading to Romanov's stash was solid adamantanium and nothing important was destroyed. NegaMorph was explaining the Omnitrix to Silvia, who now had a bandage on her forehead. "If you had bit him, why hasn't he come to our side?" asked Silvia. "I think they asked Kala to help him," said NegaMorph. "So his AI would still be in him and could be reactivated," said Silvia. "Hmm, in theory."

Romanov walked over to Silvia and said, "Miss Silvia, that wretch and his friends has caused great damage to my store. If you want me too, I could send Tuatara to bring them back." Silvia winced and said, "A tempting offer, but I'll have to pass. We can't risk Tuatara seeking revenge on the Traveller." "Revenge for what?" asked Romanov. "He, uh, was the one who, uh, defeated him before, wasn't he? Oh, my head hurts."

NegaMorph looked worried for a second and said, "Maybe we can send another bounty hunter after him." Silvia smiled and said, "Yes, and I know the perfect team for the job." She picked up her communicator and handed it to NegaMorph. "You call him," she said, "the leader's hard to understand and I've got a bad enough headache already."

* * *

Hello everyone. I'm back with a new story. I know I said I won't be back till fall, but I got stir-crazy. I've updated a lot of my characters onto my deviantART account if you want to see. Penname there's Cydra630. 

Hope you like this chapter. It's just the beginning. I'm fully aware that Frankenvolt's official name is Benvicktor, but I must say that Benvicktor is the WORST NAME FOR AN OMNITRIX ALIEN EVER!!! And I'm sure lots of people agree with me about this. Keep an eye out for the next chapter, it's coming soon. Please review.


	2. Trouble Comes in Threes

The Omnitrix Ordeal

**Chapter 2: Trouble Comes in Threes**

**Empire Command Ship**

**In Cloaked Earth Orbit**

NegaMorph looked over at the purple alien in front of him. The alien bounty hunter, called Sixsix was apparently one of this dimension's finest hunters. NegaMorph would have preferred to have sent on one of the command ships droid battalions to capture Matthew, his crew, and the Tennyson kid, but Silvia was the boss and wanted an outside specialist to do it.

He looked Sixsix over again. His record said his team had already had two run-in's with Ben, Sixsix himself three, but he and his two partners been the only ship within range of earth who had agreed…a bit too eagerly for NegaMorph's liking. He'd spent too long wanting revenge on Morph not to recognise someone itching for revenge when he saw it.

"Let me say it again. The emperor wants the Traveller, his crew and the Omnitrix wielder _**Alive**_! Are we clear? The Emperor will apparently pay whatever you want," he said, barely concealing his disagreement of the plan. He'd be very happy if Mr Lynch was 'accidentally' vaporised. Sixsix said nothing, just nodding before getting up and heading for his ship. "Weirdo," muttered NegaMorph, watching him leave.

**Earth, several miles away from Romanov's gas station…**

The RV stopped at a field full of large boulders. During the ride, Matt was introduced to Ben, Gwen, and Grandpa Max. Matt had heard of the Omnitrix from reputation. He didn't really think it was as all-powerful as people think it was, but it was impressive nonetheless. The Tennysons talked about their adventures since Draco, Chip, and Morph were last there. It was rather interesting to hear about Ghostfreak's attempt to plunge Earth into eternal darkness with the help of his three minions. Of course there was also their meeting Xylene, the Forever Knight's attempt to take the Omnitrix, the Fountain of Youth, and the wedding with the Sludge Puppies. Then there was the matter of the Omnitrix going into Self-Destruct Mode and having to find the creator to fix it.

"So how many new aliens do you have now?" asked Lilo. "There's Benwolf, Benmummy, Frankenvolt, Upchuck, Ditto, and Way Big" said Ben, "and I've got Ghostfreak back." "Didn't you already have him?" asked Draco. "He was a copy of Kevin's Ghostfreak power, it wasn't as strong." "Pardon me for interrupting," said Matt, "but from what NegaMorph said, you two have met before." Draco and Chip then explained that during their day-off, Kevin and NegaMorph attacked and NegaMorph bit Ben. "But I got that under control," said Kala. "I'm not sure," said Matt, "the AI's are still intact just dormant and take it from me, they're sneaky."

Just then they heard a strange noise outside. "I know that sound," said Chris, "that's the sound of a ship hovering." They looked outside to see a spaceship that looked like a cross between a bladeless helicopter and a wingless dragonfly. As Matt walked outside, the door in the back opened. A humanoid alien covered in purple and black body armour stepped out on his strange clamp-like feet. The alien looked at Matt and said something in a strange guttural language. "What'd he say?" asked Chris. Matt's brow furrowed as he said, "Something like surrender or else." As Ben walked out of the RV, he saw the alien and yelled, "Sixsix!" He activated the Omnitrix and disappeared in a flash of green light. He was replaced by a 10-foot tall red alien with four arms and eyes. "Bad mistake coming by yourself," grunted Fourarms as he jumped at Sixsix. Sixsix took out a gun and zapped Fourarms into a boulder.

As Matt and Chris were reaching for their guns, an energy blast hit near their feet and they were thrown back. But the blast didn't come from Sixsix. It came from a golden-armoured alien with crustacean legs, head, and left claw. "Who said he came alone?" said the alien in a slightly Texan accent. The alien opened his claw and sent another energy blast at them. Matt ducked behind another boulder only for it to be lifted up by an alien he recognized as a Detrovite.

"You ain't going anywhere," said the Detrovite and brought the boulder down with a crash, forcing Matt to roll aside to avoid becoming a pancake. As Fourarms climbed out of the rubble that remained of the boulder, he saw the two new aliens and said, "Kraab and Volcanus?" "Aw, how sweet, you remembered us," said Kraab before sending another blast at Fourarms.

"We certainly didn't forget you," said Kraab walking over. "Especially how you threw us into the slammer," said Volcanus. Matt ran at Kraab with his Ion staff, but Krabb pulled out his sword and knocked the staff out of Matt's hand. He knocked over Matt with his claw and before Matt could get up, Krabb put his foot on Matt's chest. "Now there's a young lady who told us to bring you," said Krabb, "and we hate to keep a lady waiting." "Well," said Matt as he struggled to get the very pointy foot of his chest, "I guess she can wait just a little longer," before throwing a plasma orb in Krabb's face, knocking him over.

Suddenly Fourarms picked up a boulder and threw it at Sixsix. Sixsix activated his missile launcher and blew the boulder to pieces. In the cloud of dust that was created, Volcanus lost track of Chris. "Where'd that skinny human go?" he asked. He heard a roar and looked around to see Feral Chris leaping out at him.

About that time, the others had noticed what were going on and the experiments were coming out to join the fight. Sixsix, Kraab, and Volcanus weren't the most intellectual minds in the galaxy, but they when they were outnumbered. Sixsix shouted something along the lines of 'Fallback!' and shot several smoke grenades in various spots. The smokescreen that was created allowed the bounty hunters to escape back to their ship. The ship's upward thrust blew away the smoke and it headed out of sight. "That's odd," said Ben after the Omnitrix timed out, "Sixsix normally uses his whole bag of tricks before leaving. What are they up too?"

**Sixsix's ship…**

**Earth Orbit**

"Damn it," grumbled Volcanus, putting a med pack onto one of several scratches Feral Chris had inflicted. "Nobody warned us about the humans having custom gene upgrades, or that the Traveller's crew consisted of several of Dr. Jookiba's 600 series experiments. We'll need an army to subdue them."

Sixsix glared at his partner and said in his language, "We scouted, know what we are against, and Kraab is finishing off what will defeat them."

Kraab, who had been working on something said, "That's right. I just finished it off. Something that'll make this job a helluva lot easier." He held up a canister with a biohazard sign on it. "This gas will have anyone with gene alteration out like a light for 3 galactic standard hours at least," he said, barely concealing his smugness. Sixsix seemed concerned for a bit, "They are wanted alive. What about side effects?" Kraab shrugged, "I doubt it…Let's just get them."

**RV camp site…**

Matt was leaning against the outside of the RV, checking the NSC infonet on his wrist-comp when Chris and Ben came out. "Heh…we showed those bounty hunter wannabes, eh Matt? Matt, what's up?" Chris said noticing Matt's frown as he found what he was looking for.

"Take a look." he said showing the file. "Sixsix and his men are this universe's best bounty hunters. They could have gone through us like Stitch through coconut cake if they'd wanted," he said gloomily. No merc liked to admit he was second best.

"Big deal," said Ben, "I've handled those guys before. They're not that tough." "Alone?" asked Matt. "Well no, I've had help from a Petrosapien named Tetrax the first time, and the Galactic Enforcers helped the second time. Then Sixsix teamed up with Vilgax to get me," Ben scratched his head, "Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever fought against more than two with Sixsix."

Matt continued, "I don't think we drove them off. It was too easy." Chris nodded, now that Matt had pointed it out. "Scouting force?" he asked. Matt nodded, just as a silvery canister dropped on his head, knocking him out. A slightly yellow mist exploded out in a cloud, causing Chris and Ben to gag and pass out before they could react. Nobody noticed the Omnitrix glow violently like a green flare.

Sixsix quickly, swooped down and shot an energy blast at the handle of the RV door, melting it. It wouldn't hold for long, but it would be long enough. "Grab them and let's go," he said to Kraab and Volcanus, covering them as they pulled the knocked out Matt and Chris into their ship.

"Where's the Omnitrix kid?" Kraab said, spotting that Ben wasn't there, but the sound of metal being torn got his attention. Stitch had ripped the melted door down and the experiments were coming out to deal with it. "Never mind. We can return later…get us out of here," he said, ducking as Stitch threw the door at them, nearly knocking Kraab's head clean off.

The departing ship blew the gas backwards. As the experiments ran forward, they started coughing violently. Gwen and Max were coughing too, but not as bad as the experiments. As the mist started to clear, the experiments started to fall over, one by one. Chip remained standing the last and managed to say, "Gene splicing inhibitor," before collapsing. "Grandpa!" called Gwen, "what's happening?" Max examined the experiments and said, "Well if I know Jumba's work, they're alright, just out cold. Where's Ben?"

Some retching behind them drew their attention. They looked to see a Stitch-like experiment with brown fur and the Omnitrix on his left wrist get to his feet. The experiment looked at himself and said with Ben's voice, "Ex-Ben? I didn't go him." "Ben," said Max, "what happened?" "It was Sixsix, Kraab, and Volcanus," said Ben, "they used some kind of gas to knock out Matt and Chris and then they took them into their ship." "Gene splicing inhibitor," said Gwen, "that gas must have been made to shut down people with genetic modification." "Then why I'm awake and in Ex-Ben mode?" asked Ben. "Your human form's DNA's not that different from regular humans. But it looks like the watch must have had some kind of allergic reaction to the stuff."

"It looks like they're going to hand over Matt and Chris to Silvia," said Ben. "I think I can make a tracking spell, but I'll need something of theirs," said Gwen. Ben picked up the canister that the mist came out of. "Will this work?" he asked handing it to Gwen. "I think so," said Gwen. She waved a hand over the canister and said, "_Locas familiar revelo._" The canister glowed blue and started point in a certain direction. "I'll stay here and look after these guys," said Grandpa Max, gathering the experiments in his arms, "you two follow Sixsix and get Matt and Chris back." "But how do we do that?" asked Ben pressing the buttons on the Omnitrix, "I can't turn into anything else, so there's no Stinkfly or XLR8." "I think I have an idea," said Gwen.

Soon afterwards, Ben and Gwen were riding on the hoverboard. The canister still pointed in one direction and as went on, it glowed brighter. "We must be getting close," said Gwen. She felt something wet on her leg and looked down. Ben had his mouth open and was letting his tongue out, leaving a small trail of drool behind them. "Ben!" yelled Gwen. Ben closed his mouth and said, "Sorry."

**In an old warehouse…**

"What do you mean you didn't get the Omnitrix wielder?" cried Silvia. "The kid just disappeared after we used the gas," said Volcanus. Silvia made a disappointed glance at Matt and Chris, both were in stasis pods. "They did get those two," said NegaMorph, "that has to be worth a lot by themselves." "I suppose you're right," said Silvia, "but you forgot the experiments. They're known to make a very effective rescue party." "Not likely," said Kraab, "they won't be doing anything but breathing for a while. That leaves the little girl and the old man. They shouldn't be that much trouble."

Suddenly a blue blast of energy sent Kraab flying into a wall. The others turned around to see Gwen and Ex-Ben standing at the doorway. "Who are you calling little?" said Gwen. But the centre of attention was Ex-Ben. "That's what he looks like in EXP form?" asked Silvia. "Apparently," said NegaMorph. "Just checking." Then all of the villains started laughing. Ben's ears drooped and he said, "This is so embarrassing."

"We're not leaving without Matt and Chris!" yelled Gwen. At this, the villains laughed even harder. Silvia wiped the tears from her eyes and said, "You two against the five of us? You've got to be joking." "Here's a joke for you. _Reanima dynamica._" Electrical sparks came out of the ground and zapped Silvia. Volcanus scratched his head and said, "I don't get it." "Then get this," said Ben and he threw an oil barrel at the ogre-like alien. Volcanus went flying back and crashed into a wall. Sixsix activated his jetpack and lifted into the air. He shot several laser blasts from his guns at the cousins. Ben wretched a metal plate from out of the wall and threw it at Sixsix. Sixsix ducked to avoid it and threw an energy net at Ben. The net zapped Ben and made him cry out in pain. Kraab picked up the net and said, "He's a lot easier to handle when he's small like this." Gwen lifted her hand and caused Sixsix to fly into Kraab's back, releasing Ben from his prison.

Suddenly Gwen felt a punch behind her back and she fell forward. She flipped onto her back and saw Silvia looking down at her. "You've got guts, girl. But it takes more that some magic firecrackers to take me down." She aimed a strike at Gwen, but she flipped back and kicked at Silvia's legs. Silvia stumbled and Gwen got to her feet. "Let's finish, girl's style," said Gwen, assuming a fighting stance. "You? Beat me in hand-to-hand combat?" said Silvia. "What makes you think you have any chance when Matt could never beat me?" "Because I'm not afraid to hit a girl," said Gwen and she aimed a karate chop at Silvia.

Meanwhile, while Kraab and Sixsix tried to untangle themselves, Ben was dealing with Volcanus, who had recently gotten up. Ex-Ben proved to be very useful in dodging the Detrovite's footstool-sized fists. Suddenly something grabbed Ben's leg and Volcanus managed to land a hit on Ben that sent him back into the wall. As Ben got up, black claws wrapped themselves tightly around his feet. Ben looked down to see NegaMorph holding on to him. "Nowhere to run," hissed NegaMorph. "Who's running?" asked Ben and he kicked NegaMorph onto Volcanus' face.

Gwen and Silvia continued to fight each other. Finally Silvia punched Gwen in the side and caused to fall back into a pile of boxes. "You have spirit, kid," said Silvia, "but not enough muscle behind it." "How about this muscle?" said a voice behind her. Silvia looked over her shoulder and suddenly everything went dark. As she struggled to get out of the barrel Ben put over her head, Gwen got up. "You know, it's not as easy for me as it is for you, Ben," said Gwen.

Suddenly a black mechanical arm reached over the pile of boxes and grabbed Gwen's wrist. She was pulled over to the other side and encountered the arm's owner, NegaMorph. "Aw, jealous of your cousin's power?" said NegaMorph. "Maybe I can grant you the same favour I granted him," and he opened his mouth wide to bite. Instead of getting a mouthful of flesh, NegaMorph got a mouthful of shoe when Gwen kicked him. NegaMorph hissed in pain and let Gwen go. As he spat out the broken teeth and regrew them, he said, "You've got some nerve, girl." "That's not all I have," said Gwen and she used a magical blast to send NegaMorph out of the warehouse.

"Uh, Gwen? A little help here?" Gwen looked to see that Sixsix, Kraab, and Volcanus were ganging up on Ben. Gwen waved her palm at some empty oil barrels and said, "_Twistus combititus!_" A bolt of blue energy came out of her hand and covered the barrels. The metal from the barrels separated and formed a giant energy cobra. The energy cobra lashed out and knocked the bounty hunters back. "We can't handle them all by ourselves," said Gwen and she started messing with the controls to the stasis pods containing Matt and Chris. "Let me help," said Ben and he started tampering with the pods' wires. "How do you know what you're doing?" asked Gwen. "I have a bit of Grey Matter's intelligence, I should be able to release them and undo the effects of the gas."

Suddenly Gwen heard something coming towards her and she quickly moved out of the way. Five small black things imbedded themselves in the control console. The five things were fangs. Gwen looked in the direction the fangs came from. NegaMorph was standing there with his hand-mouth open at her. "Step away from that, now," said NegaMorph. Gwen pointed her hands at NegaMorph and said, "_Imoja objectia._" The stream of wind energy released from her hands went down NegaMorph's open mouths. It caused him to inflate like a balloon. "Now you know how I felt inside a HAZMAT suit," said Gwen smugly.

"Done!" cried Ben and the two stasis pods opened with a creak. Matt and Chris opened their eyes and rubbed their foreheads. "Where am I?" asked Chris. "Not sure, but it's not good," said Ben. Matt looked at the Stitch-like experiment who spoke then noticed the Omnitrix on its wrist. "Ben? That's your EXP Form?" "Yeah, but can we talk later? We've got five bad guys to get away from."

Fortunately, Matt and Chris's long history of being knocked out have given a quick recovery pace from said injury. Matt threw a plasma ball that knocked Kraab off the floor, slammed him through into the ceiling and into Sixsix's ship. Chris gave Volcanus a flying punch out the door and into Sixsix's ship. Sixsix himself was blasted into his ship by the energy cobra that Gwen had conjured. The ship quickly took off and flew away. NegaMorph and Silvia had been watching the bounty hunters' escape so when they turned around they were both hit in the face by Ben's fist and Gwen's foot respectively, knocking them out cold.

Ben dusted his paws off and said to the unconscious black blob, "That was for biting me." "We better get out of here before those two wake up," said Chris. "How?" asked Gwen, "we only have one hoverboard, and I don't think it can carry all of us." "How'd you think Silvia got here?" asked Matt as he pulled the canvas off a hovercraft. "I call shotgun!" said Ben.

**Back at Romanov's rest stop…**

Romanov walked into the back part of his store where the more expensive stuff was kept. As he gave casual glances at the building-destroying grade weapons, he thought about the Traveller. Silvia kept no secret about the Traveller's escape on her hovercraft. Indeed, his men were keeping a safe distance from her. Only her pet monstrosity would go near her. "They should have accepted my offer," said Romanov, "shows them to go running off to miscellaneous hunters who run away when battle is too rough. I, however, have more reliable hunter on my side." He went over to the stasis pod where the dormant Tuatara was kept. He pressed some buttons on the side and a helmet was lowered onto the mutant's head. Only when the lights on the helmet were on did Romanov open the pod. As the lizard cyborg's eyes opened, Romanov said, "A scientist has paid us a healthy sum to catch some subjects for him. When you succeed, you'll be rewarded with a special dinner, Matthew Lynch."

* * *

There's another chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. My apologies for the brief swearing in the middle. It might be a while till I can update again since largefish8 is still on vacation. Please review. 


	3. Jaws of the Jungle

The Omnitrix Ordeal

**Chapter 3: The Jaws of the Jungle**

The Rustbucket moved to a more wooded area after the bounty hunters attacked so they wouldn't be attacked again. Grandpa Max went out to see if he could find any grub to eat. Several experiments were searching for food in case Max meant what he said literally. Matt had a project of his own. He was trying to contact the Shadow Hawk, but his wrist computer didn't have that far a connection. So Matt was using Gwen's computer that was rigged up to Chip so he can extend his extension further.

"You do know that they might not be in this dimension right now, right?" asked Chip as he positioned his arms to get as good a reception as he can. "Never hurts to check," said Matt. "I dunno, Gwen's a bit edgy when it comes to her computer." "What the little Girl Scout doesn't know won't hurt her," answered Matt, checking the signal.

"You really shouldn't call Gwen that," said Chip who was waving his arms around much more. "Chip, I almost had a reception there," said Matt. Then he noticed Chip's arms were moving in flag signals. "S, H, E, I, S, R, I, G, H, T, B, E, H, I, N, D, Y, O, U," spelled out Matt, "She is right behind me?" "Yep," said a familiar voice.

Matt jumped and turned around to see Gwen. "Gwen, what's up?" asked Matt, closing the laptop behind him. "What were you doing with my computer?" "Um, playing a game of chess?" "Then why's there a cable connected to Chip?" "Uh, we're playing each other?" "Then why couldn't have you used the chess pieces in the drawer?" asked Gwen as she reached for her laptop. "Don't open that!" said Matt, but Gwen opened it and got a large jolt of electricity that made her hair stand on end. As Gwen was glaring at Matt, Chip jumped out a window to safety. "You know," said Matt nervously, "that's a really nice hairdo. I might get one like that." "I have a different style in mind for you," said Gwen as blue light surrounded her hand.

Meanwhile, Grandpa Max had returned with Stitch and Draco with several bass. "Bass are really good when you grill them up fresh," said Grandpa Max. "I hope pike are too," said Draco, looking at the pike latched onto his tail. Suddenly Chip hopped out a window of the RV and ran towards them. "Chip? What's going on?" asked Stitch. Before Chip could reply, there was an explosive sound in the RV and the door swung open. Matt ran out with his head on fire, screaming, and Gwen ran after him yelling, "I'M JUST GETTING STARTED!" As the two of them ran into the woods, Max said, "In my experience, there are some things you don't want to know about."

Gwen ran after Matt until she lost sight of him. She lost track of him at the edge of a large pond. "You'll have to come back sometime," said Gwen and headed back to the campsite. As soon as she was gone, Matt allowed himself to come to the surface and take in a breath of air. "Man is she crazy," as he crawled up onto the bank. "How can Ben stand being around her?"

Then the bushes a couple of feet away started rustling. Being lit on fire and having to dive in a pond doesn't make one happy, so Matt picked up a rock and threw it at the bushes. "Dumb rabbit," he said. Suddenly he heard a yelp and then some snarling. He looked back to see something come out of the bushes he threw a rock at. It looked a lot like a blue wolf standing on its hind legs. It rubbed his head with its three-clawed hand and glared at Matt with its yellow eyes. "Um, nice doggy?" said Matt.

The wolf creature snarled angrily and ran at Matt, aiming a slash at his head. Matt dodged the slash, but was clipped on the shoulder and was spun like a top. His vision stopped spinning in time to see the creature about to deal a fatal blow. Matt managed to send a weak plasma ball into the wolf's face, knocking it back and giving Matt to get out of range.

Matt focused on the creature properly for the first time. It seemed familiar. "Why me?" he muttered, drawing his ion staff and setting it to a low setting. The wolf circled and Matt could see a few nasty plasma burns on its right arm. "What happened to you?" he muttered. The answer was quite shocking. The wolf's muzzle split into four portions and it howled, sending a yellow sonic wave that lifted Matt off his feet and into a tree hard enough to crack it.

"Ouch," he mumbled, shaking his head to get his vision steady again. "Now I remember…Loboans." The Loboan in question lunged at him again. This time it managed to grab Matt and tried to throw him again. Matt was ready this time and shot a plasma charge into the Loboan, rendering it unconscious. "S.s.smegging hell," he panted, before pulling out his comm.

The others were around the cooking fire, watching the fish grill. "Nothing makes fish taste so good than roasting it over a roaring fire," said Max. "Yeah, but just remember, I get the first bite of pike," said Draco. Suddenly Chris's communicator beeped and Chris answered it; "Hello? Oh, Matt, it's you. We're cooking that fish we've caught. What's that? You what? But Matt, that can't be, what would one be doing here? You sure that's a good idea? Alright, but I'm not handling it. See ya soon." "What is it?" asked Ben. "Matt's coming back and he's bringing a friend."

Not long after that, Matt came into the clearing, dragging the unconscious Loboan behind him. There were several cries of shock and surprise. "I know, odd isn't it," said Matt after he laid the werewolf alien near the fire, "I figure that he must have crashed here." "Not likely," said Draco, "Luna Lobo is a moon in the Null Void, so it's not from this dimension in a matter of speaking. Plus, Loboans rarely hunt outside of packs." "But there was that Yenaldooshi Loboan that worked for Ghostfreak," said Ben. "That was different; Loboans are very similar to earth wolves mentally, although a lot more intelligent. That Yenaldooshi knew that Ghostfreak was the leader of a strong 'pack' and was willing to serve him as long as he got rewarded." "You don't think this is the same Loboan, do you?" asked Gwen. "I doubt it," said Max, leaning next to the Loboan's head, "the transmitter it was using blew up when I busted the receiver. I don't think even it can survive an explosion like that." He lifted the Loboan's eyelids and said, "Nope, this one's eyes are yellow, not purple. Must be from a different clan."

Suddenly the Loboan's nostrils flare and its eyes opened a little. It lifted its head and looked around. He spied the still-cooking bass and pulled it off the spit. It then wolfed it down, ignoring the hotness of the fish's flesh. It then growled at the group and started to open its muzzle flaps. "Easy boy," said Matt, "we're not gonna hurt you." The Loboan glared at Matt and growled. "Oh, I wish these nanites worked on Loboans," said Matt backing up. "No, but I've got the next best thing," said Ben and he activated the Omnitrix in a flash of green light. He was replaced by another Loboan who looked a lot like the other one except he was wearing a uniform with the Omnitrix logo on his waistline and his eyes were green. The Loboan Matt found looked at Benwolf and snarled. Benwolf responded with guttural growls and snarls. The wild Loboan's ears perked up and started make similar growls and snarls, which was apparently the Loboan language.

After what appeared to be a lengthy conversation, the wild Loboan nodded and limped over to a log that it sat on. "Give him some fish, he's starving," said Benwolf. As the wild Loboan devoured another bass, Benwolf told them of what their conversation was about: "He said his name was Masque. He's not that much older than me and he's come with several of his peers as some coming-of-age ritual. They have to hunt down a large animal from another world. They were going to this ceremonial hunt here, but they were attacked by humans who had some sort of monster with them. Masque didn't see much, but it had a tail, long claws, and can shoot out blasts from its hands. He was the only one who escape, the rest were captured. He was going to go to find some help when he ran into Matt. And since Matt beat him, he thinks we're the best ones to help him."

"I dislike poaching as much as the next guy," said Morph, "even less with extraterrestrial poaching. But I'd still like another reason of why we should do this." With a clean swipe, Masque sliced off the top half of Morph's head. "Okay, I'm in," said Morph after regrowing his head. "How do we find the guys who took the Loboans?" asked Lilo. In response, Morph morphed into Finder and started sniffing Masque. After getting a scent, he ran off into the woods.

The trail eventually led to a modern hunting lodge. "I wonder who owns this place?" asked Stitch. "That would be Romanov," said Chip. "How do you know?" asked Matt. Chip pointed at a sign that said, "Property of Auric Romanov." "I think I know how to lure them out, but we'll need three people who can do a Loboan's howl," muttered Matt before looking at Morph.

Inside the lodge, Romanov and his men were drinking to the success of their hunt. "Say boss," said one of the thugs, "where are these werewolf things going?" "I've told you," said Romanov, "a scientist wants alien DNA and test subjects. We've just killed two birds with one stone." The Loboans were kept an adamantanium cage that was soundproofed. The Loboans inside where all yellow-eyed like Masque and were very riled up for being stuck together. "Ah, shut up, you stinking savages," said one of Romanov's men and threw a bottle at the cage. One of the Loboans turned to the other and said in the Loboan language, "I say, did that fellow just call us savages?" "How crude," said its friend.

Suddenly three howls were heard outside. "What was that?" demanded Romanov. "Sounds like coyotes," said one of his men. Romanov smacked him and said, "Fool, there are no coyotes around here. You've missed some Loboans. Get out there and catch them!" About three quarters of Romanov's men left, the others stayed behind to guard the cage. Romanov himself went downstairs to take care of 'something'. Outside, one group of Romanov's goons headed towards the direction of one howl. As they got closer, the howl started to sound deeper than the others. "Its right there," said one of them and sent a plasma blast in the direction.

The howling was replaced by a squeak that didn't sound the least bit Loboan. They went around the trees blocking the way to find a light blue lemur-like creature with four arms and a foghorn-like antenna on its head. "Looks like we've found an experiment, double bounty," said one and fired a net at the creature. The creature gave off a foghorn-like blast that blew the net back at the thugs. Then it turned into a groundhog-like creature with a drill for a tail and buried itself down into the ground.

Romanov's men might have made Morph's (for it was he) life more interesting by firing a few stunner rounds down after him had Draco, Stitch, Chip, and 627 not sprung from various hiding places…and when some angry experiments turn up, it easily occupies all of a person's attention.

Meanwhile…

A knock at the door of the lodge got Romanov's attention. "Go let the idiots in…" he snapped at his guard. The guard walked out and opened the door…only to get squashed as Chris, who'd been on the other side, lost patience and kicked it open. Romanov jumped up in shock to see Matt run in, followed by Chris, Ben and Masque. "Shoot them, you morons!" he screamed, running out a side-door.

Romanov's men all jumped up, grabbing various rifles and opening fire, forcing Matt n co to hide. "I miss my particle rifle," said Matt as various rounds bounced off the wall he'd hidden behind. Three of Romanov's men at that point, having been blessed with higher IQ's then the average grunt, had sneaked round and rounded the corner.

Unfortunately, they did it on Masque and Benwolf's side and received a double sonic howl from the two that knocked them senseless, and made a new doorway in the lodge's wall. Matt and Chris winced in unison before a shaking got their attention.

Suddenly the floorboards cracked and a hole opened up. A groundhog-like experiment poked its head out of the hole. There was a couple of seconds of silence before Romanov's men turned their guns on the experiment. Suddenly the experiment's neck grew longer and green. The head changed to resemble a purple flytrap's head. The paws that were showing nearing the hole became long green vines which grabbed Romanov's men and threw them around. Matt grinned. "Go, Morph…I'll go get Romanov." he said to the others.

Matt blasted the lock on the side-door and shouldered it open. Another open door into the cellar indicated where Romanov had gone. The only things in the room were a large adamantanium containment unit and a mobile droid charger. Alarm bells went off in Matt's head at this but he shrugged them off and headed over to the cage. He pulled out a disk-like device and clamped it onto the lock where it began beeping, running combinations through the cages lock.

He thought he heard a creak behind him but when he turned, gun drawn, nothing was there. A beep sounded from the lock-picker and he turned back relaxing. This was a mistake for a metallic clawed hand burst through the floorboards and gripped his ankle before pulling him down.

Matt had a picture of a pair of glowing reptilian eyes that sent some hauntingly familiar shudders down his spine before he was tossed at one of the lodges concrete support columns that were placed in the basement.

He hit it in his chest and bounced off, his ribs crying out from the impact with the concrete. He winced; staggering to his feet in time to be attacked again, the figure leaping forward, impossibly fast and pinning Matt back against the pillar. Matt managed to grip his ion staff and slashed out, cutting into the creature's chest.

He put some distance between himself and the creature and suddenly heard clapping. He turned his now pounding head to see Romanov wear a grin so wide you'd swear the top of his head was about to fall off. "Ah, Mr. Lynch, I see you have met my new…employee. He definitely knows you," the arms dealer said. The creature walked into the light of the hanging cellar light and Matt jumped in shock.

The thing had been some kind of reptilian being, his chest was covered in a mix of cybernetic augmentation and armoured scales. The thing's arms were fully cybernetic below the elbows and the tail was also robotic, ending in a four-pronged, gripping claw. Its face was covered by a battle armour mask though.

Matt looked at it. "Smeg, he is one ugly dude. Where'd you dig him up?" he said grimly. Romanov smiled evilly, "I found him in orbit of Sy-yong in the wake of a ship called the Skyraid…he'd…well you could say he'd 'gone to pieces'." Even the thing winced at the bad pun as Romanov continued, "I saw I'd found something spectacular when he regenerated unexpectedly in the laboratory and tried to attack the staff. He seemed quite eager to kill…what was it… the 'Pack traitor' was it? Now he gets his wish." Matt backed up, now remembering where he'd met this…monster before.

Romanov grinned, "He chose a name…Tuatara." He turned to 'Tuatara' and said, "Kill him and his crew," before walking out. Tuatara reacted before Matt could blink, covering the distance between them in one leap and grabbing Matt round the throat and lifting him so they were eye to eye. "You killed me…I didn't like that," he said in a guttural snarl before bashing Matt against the wall. Matt tried to shake the stars from his vision as Tuatara said, "You even gave up your gift that I gave you, Pack traitor…I'll enjoy killing you." And with that he tossed Matt back up through the lodge floor with enough strength to bounce him off the ceiling of the room he ended up in.

Chris was just cuffing one of Romanov's men when Matt smashed through the floor and landed next to him, comatose. Some kind of cybernetic reptile leapt through the new hole. "What the heck is that thing?" said Chris. The cyber-lizard grabbed Matt and threw him into a wall. "Very strong apparently," said Morph and he tried wrapping up the monster in his vines. It took the creature about 3 seconds to tear itself loose. It then uprooted Morph and threw into Chris.

"Looks like it's up to us," said Benwolf and he and Masque started attacking the monster. But even with two Loboans on it, the monster was still more than a match for them. Then Benwolf and Masque got on either side of him and let out a sonic howl. The helmet the cyber-lizard was wearing started emitting lots of sparks as the creature grabbed the sides of its head and roared with pain. Then both Benwolf and Masque delivered a blow that both knocked the monster out and caused his helmet to shatter.

"Let's get out of here," said Benwolf. Suddenly the door to the basement was ripped off its hinges. Then the formerly-captured Loboans walked out. "My brothers!" cried Masque, "you are free!" Benwolf stared at Masque. "You can speak English? And you've been using to translate for you all day?" Masque shrugged, "It was funny while it lasted." He bent down and picked up Matt, "But first I think we should return these guys to you camp." The other Loboans picked up Chris and Morph, both of which had been knocked out. Since Morph had reverted to his normal form after losing consciousness, it was relatively easy. As they were passing out the large hole in the wall they created earlier, Masque said to Benwolf, "By the way, by our standards, you have passed the test. You are of age now." "That's nice to know," said Benwolf, "but you know I'm really a human." "Oh, right, but it still counts." The Loboans left without taking another look back. Which was unfortunate, since when the last Loboan passed through the whole, the cyber-lizard's mechanical opened.

Soon afterwards, the Loboans had returned Matt, Chris, and the experiments to the RV camp. Ben had powered down by then so he didn't speak to anymore of the Loboans. "You sure you guys will be okay?" asked Ben. "Don't worry," said Masque, "we're quick healers and should be fine in a few of your earth days. But I think it would be best if we hunted in a different part of Earth. Best wishes to you and your pack." Then the Loboans headed off and disappeared into the woods.

The experiments didn't get hurt during their attack; in fact, Morph was peachy keen after he woke up. Chris had been hit with worst so he was okay too, aside from the bruises. However, Matt had been beaten up quite a bit by Tuatara. It was found out that the slamming had caused a couple of his ribs to crack. Fortunately, none of his organs were damaged. Matt was put out about the fact that he won't be doing any heavy fighting for a while. But very fortunately, Matt wouldn't be able to do much labour at all if Max wasn't wrapping up his sides with Benmummy's help.

"Now this stuff may look flimsy," said Max as he wrapped Benmummy's bandages around Matt, "but it's really durable. This should protect your ribs against almost any blow. But I wouldn't overexert yourself if I were you." "I feel like a roll of alien tape," muttered Benmummy. "How do you think I feel?" said Matt, "when I meet Tuatara, I'm gonna finish what I thought I finished." "What did happen between you two?" asked Max as tied up the last loop. Matt slowly hoisted himself up and put his shirt back on. "It's a long story," he said.

Suddenly there was a loud roar not too far away. "I know that sound," said Matt, "it's Tuatara." He made for the door, but Max held him back. "If you try to fight him now, he'll crush your entire ribcage," he said.

"I took him out once, I can do it again," said Matt. "I have too," said Benmummy, "he'll want me too. Let me fight him." "As an Egyptian paper-mache?" asked Gwen, "he'll rip you to bits." "He has a weakness too, right?" answered Benmummy. "Tuatara's kind is weak against ice," said Matt, "that's how we beat him last time." "Yes, we cold-blooded lizard-types are a bit sensitive to the cold," said Draco, "but I think I have an idea."

After a minute of planning and Morph making sure the Omnitrix is at full charge, Benmummy stepped out of the Rustbucket. "Hey Robo-Raptor!" yelled Benmummy, "if you got any nerves left, come out and fight me!" "Why should I?" hissed Tuatara's voice. Benmummy pointed at the Omnitrix logo on his left shoulder, "Remember this?" Tuatara focused his mechanical eye from his hiding place at Benmummy's shoulder. "You work with that Loboan with the green eyes, don't you?" he snarled. "Yeah, you could say that." "Any ally of his is prey to me," hissed Tuatara and leaped out of the trees, straight at Benmummy. Benmummy bent backwards and Tuatara missed him and tumbled onto the ground. "One good thing about having no bones," said Benmummy, "it makes you really good at limbo."

"Pity, I was hoping on crunching on them and sucking out the marrow," said the cyborg reptile and he slashed at Benmummy with his tail. Benmummy narrowly dodged it and grabbed Tuatara's leg. He threw into the air and as he was going up, Benmummy extended his arm and gave him a punch that made him go even farther. Tuatara crashed to the ground, creating a small impact on his landing. "Had enough?" said Benmummy. Tuatara slashed out and cut off Benmummy's feet, causing him to fall. Before Benmummy could recover, Tuatara was on him. "I rip your insides to scraps," he growled and ripped off Benmummy's chest.

Instead of delectable organs underneath the papyrus-like skin, Tuatara instead found a grinning Draco. "Happy birthday!" said Draco, "Blow out the candles." Draco opened his ice mouth and sent a super-chilling blast into Tuatara's face. Within seconds, the mutant had been encased in a block of ice. "Wow," said Benmummy, "that went better than I expected." "Even I can come up with a good plan now and then," said Draco, "now we can make sure he never hurts anyone again."

Suddenly several red gem-like spots on Tuatara's mechanical parts started glowing a fiery red. The heat they gave off reduced the ice block to a puddle in seconds. "Romanov may not be able to control me without that helmet," said Tuatara, "but he is good at designing a safety mechanism for ice-based attacks. Along with other things." Then the slots on Tuatara's wrist opened to reveal two rapid-fire rocket launchers. He aimed at Draco and Benmummy and opened fire. The two had to duck and weave to avoid get blown to bits. One missile managed to hit Benmummy's right hand and the explosion set Benmummy on fire. Draco quickly picked up a large rock and beat the flames off of Benmummy. "Note to self:" said Benmummy, "Stay away from fire when your skin is paper."

Then Tuatara tried to slice Benmummy in half with his tail, but Draco got it with his own tail. As the two reptiles 'tail-wrestled', Benmummy rubbed his masked forehead and said to himself, "Think like the dweeb, think like the dweeb." He looked at Tuatara and saw the hot spots on him had turned off. "I get it," said Benmummy and he extended the two loose bandages on his back and wrapped them around Tuatara. As Tuatara tried to break free, Benmummy wrapped more and more bandages around him until Benmummy was completely wrapped around Tuatara.

"Draco! When I say now, use your fire breath on him," cried Benmummy. "But you'll be incinerated!" said Draco. "Just give me a minute," said Benmummy and he manipulated one of Tuatara's arms to swing around and slice off Benmummy's head and left shoulder. "Now!" said the disembodied headdress. Draco opened his fire mouth and sent an inferno of flames at Tuatara. The bandages covering him converted to carbon nearly instantly, but Tuatara's scales were too tough to be burned. Nevertheless, he squeezed his eyes shut and yelled, "Too hot! Too hot!" His mechanical parts sent out gusts of steam until they crackled and shut down. Then Draco stopped breathing fire. After that, a weakened and charred Tuatara slumped to the ground unconscious.

"Poor Ben," said Draco, looking at the smouldering ashes. "That's my name. Don't wear it out," said a voice behind him. Draco looked and saw Benmummy's head extending bandages. "But how?" asked Draco. "As long as my head and the Omnitrix are still intact and connected, I can recover from anything," explained Benmummy as he braided his bandages into a torso. "Now that's very cool," said Draco, "but how'd you know how to beat Tuatara. By this time, Benmummy had completed the skirt part of his torso and was moving onto his legs, "Those hot spots only came on when Tuatara was covered in ice. I figured that his machinery could overheat because since Tuatara's cold-blooded, he would have them on all the time." "That makes sense, but what do we do about Tuatara?" "Give me a minute," said Benmummy as he started moulding his arms, "this isn't as easy as it looks."

Shortly afterwards, Tuatara had been wrapped up Benmummy bandages and Benmummy himself had stretched himself around him. Draco had hold of Benmummy's loose bandages and started swing him around like a sling. When Draco reached an appropriate speed, Benmummy let go of Tuatara and he went flying out of sight. Just as Benmummy touched the ground again, the Omnitrix turned red, beeped, and reverted him back to Ben. "I don't think we'll be seeing that overgrown lizard for a long time," said Ben. "Hey!" said Draco, "I resent that remark!"

Unfortunately, Tuatara had been thrown towards where Silvia had parked her ship. He was brought aboard and treated at the medical bay. Then Silvia herself went to have a word with him. "I've heard you have a grudge against someone known as the Traveller," she said. Tuatara growled and said, "That Pack-traitor, when I find him and his alien friends, they will pay dearly."

"What a coincidence," said Silvia in an uncharacteristically kind voice, "I'm after them too. The Hamsterviel Empire would appreciate your skills if you worked for us. If you agree to work for us, I can make it worth your while. What else do you want besides the 'Pack-traitor'?" Tuatara gave her a nasty grin and said, "A mate." Silvia grimaced and said, "Not gonna happen, pal." "Fine, I'll want my own territory then."

"Done!" said Silvia and she quickly typed some information into a laptop she had with her. She thought of how upset Romanov will be when he realizes he's lost his 'perfect bounty hunter'. "Finders keepers, losers weepers," she thought. NegaMorph had walked in at that moment and looked at Tuatara. "Oh great," said NegaMorph sarcastically, "I've always wanted a pet that could kill me." Tuatara sniffed the air and said, "Hmm, lunch." Then he tackled NegaMorph into the other room. As Silvia continued to work on her laptop, she heard some ripping sounds in the other room and NegaMorph yelling, "Tuatara! Quit it!" Then the ripping stopped and she heard Tuatara panting. "Heh, heh, heh, eyes bigger than your stomach, eh lizard boy?" Then the ripping sounds continued along with NegaMorph's protesting. "Lab mutants," muttered Silvia.

* * *

There's another chapter and a rather fine one if I do say so myself. Not sure how long it will take for me to do the next one. Keep an eye out for it. Please review. 


	4. The PlasMorph Effect

The Omnitrix Ordeal

Inside the top of a mountain, evil plans were being plotted, revenge was being prepared, and a crazy mad scientist was yelling at Auric Romanov for not holding up his end of the deal. "You fool!" yelled Dr. Aloysius Animo, "you had a whole pack of alien test subjects, but lost them to that Tennyson boy!" "The Tennyson boy wasn't alone on that operation," said Romanov, "I've told you he's had help from Matthew Lynch and his crew." "Never mind that!" said Dr. Animo. "I don't want excuses from you. You can kiss you payment goodbye!" With that, Animo hit the off button on the communicator and Romanov's face disappeared.

"It's so hard to find good help these days," said Animo as he walked through his secret lab. "But I suppose it's not a complete lost. At least I know the Tennysons are somewhere around here. I've been itching to have another look at that watch since my files were erased." He looked at several caged animals and said, "That means sending out one of you to get that boy. Let's see now. No, won't work, done that before. Aha!" He stopped at a cage holding a star-nosed mole. "This should do it," he said as he reached in and grabbed the mole. He placed it in the middle of the floor and adjusted the colander-helmet on his head. "Those fools will never know what hit them," and he fired his mutation beam at the star-nosed mole. The mole grew to monstrous size and grew a second pair of forelegs. The tiny eyes were raised up on eyestalks and turned red. And then the tentacles at the end of its nose grew four feet long and grew suction cups on them. "Go find that Tennyson brat and bring him to me," said Animo. The mutant mole roared and tunnelled down into the ground.

Meanwhile, there was a lot of activity down where the Rustbucket was parked. It turns out that another Virus Clone had made it to Earth. This one was of Experiment 621, Chopsuey. This particular Virus Clone seems to be a lot more aggressive to experiments than humans. This is unlucky seeing that along with skilful fighting skills; the original Chopsuey was designed to dice up anything that stood in his path with his claws, fangs, and solidifying Mohawk.

Viral Chopsuey was found terrorizing a local farmer's market. Only as Diamondhead did Ben feel safe enough to tackle the maniacal clone, which is what he did the first time he attacked him. Viral Chopsuey picked up Diamondhead and tossed him onto a display stand of tomatoes. "Aw man," said Diamondhead as he wiped the red juice from his crystalline skin, "it had to be tomatoes." About that time, Stitch had tackled the Viral Clone from behind and was trying to hold him down. "Don't worry," said Diamondhead as he turned his hands into crystal spikes, "I got him." Viral Chopsuey saw this and elbowed Stitch in the gut with his lower arms and threw him backward. Diamondhead fired, but Viral Chopsuey jumped and Stitch narrowly avoided getting speared with Petrosapien shards. "Sorry," said Diamondhead. Then Viral Chopsuey shoved a watermelon on Diamondhead's head and headed off.

His progress was blocked by PlasMorph, who was holding a pitchfork in his hands. "You'll have to get past me," said the blob. Viral Chopsuey nonchalantly swiped at Morph with his claws. "Is that all you've got?" said Morph but then his pitchfork fell into several pieces, "'cause that's really good." Then Morph himself collapsed into a jigsaw puzzle, "Oh blitznak." Viral Chopsuey was too busy laughing to see Stitch throw a squash at his head. The blow knocked the Viral Clone to the ground and several green crystals grew up from the ground to pin him down. "That should do the trick," said Diamondhead as the Omnitrix timed out. "Now how do we get him back to the Rustbucket?" asked Ben. Stitch dug up the ground around Viral Chopsuey and placed the captive Viral Clone in a watering can that was then sealed up with Diamondhead crystals. As the two of them left with their prize, the several still-healing pieces of Morph followed after them.

Later at a diner, the experiments and the Tennysons were having sundaes to celebrate their victory. Fortunately, this was one of those diners were people don't give second looks and don't ask questions. "You should be proud of your victory," said Stitch, whose words were translated by Chip, "the original Chopsuey was a really hard experiment to catch. Apparently, he didn't take too kindly to Jumba making more experiments after him."

"Yeah," said Morph, "we showed that clone whose boss." Ben looked at Morph and said, "'We?'" "I helped too you know," said Morph. "Mostly by distracting him," said Stitch. "But I help out lots of times." "By turning into another experiment and distracting them," said Draco. "Hey!" said Morph, "I can turn into other things besides experiments!" And to prove his point, Morph turned into first Lilo and then Ben. "How'd you get my DNA?" asked Ben. "I've been inside the Omnitrix long enough to collect some," replied Morph. "The point is that in your natural form, you're pretty useless," said Ben. Morph was about to make a very angry retort but instead grabbed the capture container Viral Chopsuey was in and stormed off. The others gave Ben harsh looks. "What it's true," he said. "Look who's calling the kettle black," said Gwen.

Morph was so mad; he didn't bother taking his Ben form. "Useless as you really are, who does he think he's kidding," growled Morph as he kicked a rock. "I may not be as strong or fast or smart as the other experiments but I'm no weakling. Dose he have any idea how hard it is to run the Omnitrix? Of course not and he doesn't give any credit for my help either." Viral Chopsuey smirked and said something in experiment-tongue. "Oh shut up!" yelled Morph and he kicked at a larger rock and ended up stubbing his toe.

Suddenly the ground shook very hard. Morph looked at Viral Chopsuey and asked, "Did you do that?" The Virus Clone shook his head and the ground shook even harder. Suddenly something burst out the ground causing Morph to fall backwards. He looked up to see Animo's mutant mole towering over him. Morph only had enough time to scream before the mole grabbed him in his tentacles and drag him back into the tunnel.

The others were leaving the diner at about that time. "You didn't have to say that to Morph," said Draco. "What? It's true," said Ben. "Maybe, but you didn't have to put it so nastily. You really hurt his feelings." "He'll recover, like he recovers from anything else you can throw at him." "Ben," said Max, "haven't you ever heard the saying 'the pen is mightier than the sword'?" "That's lame," said Ben, "how can you get beaten by a pen?" "He means words can cause more pain than wounds," said Chip.

Suddenly they heard a scream and they headed towards the area the scream came from. When they arrived, all they found was a freshly-dug molehill. The size of a BMW. "Either a new geyser's sprung up," said Max, "or something big is burrowing around here." "There's one way to find out," said Draco and he kicked Chip into the hole. "Since he's not being boiled alive, it's not a geyser," said Draco. "Are you two always like this?" asked Gwen. "Sometimes, but we never use guns or sharp objects." Chip's arm popped out of the hole holding several long black hairs. "I found this at the bottom," said Chip as he climbed out, "A short scan reveals it to be hair from a _Condylura cristataI_. Commonly known as the star-nosed mole. But there's been some altering in the DNA." "Looks like the work of Dr. Animo," said Ben. "Animo? That mad scientist guy who mutates animals into monsters and is interested in alien DNA?" asked Lilo. "And now he's got Morph and a Viral Clone," said Max, "Heaven know's what can come of this."

Meanwhile, the mutant mole had reappeared in Animo's lair. "Excellent my pet," said Animo as the mole held the captive 'Ben' in front of Animo, "you have done very well to bring this snot-nosed brat and his watch to me." "Hey I'm not snot-nosed!" said 'Ben' "I blew my nose three days ago!" "Place him in the containment sphere," said Animo, pointing to a glass-like ball. As the mutant lowered 'Ben' into it, Animo said, "Don't bother turning into any of those aliens, this containment sphere is designed to cancel out any molecular transformations." As soon as the lid was closed, the sphere zapped 'Ben' with red energy and turned him back into Morph. "What?!" cried Animo, "you're not Tennyson! You're not even one of his aliens!" He smacked the mole mutant and said, "You fool! You didn't bring that watch!" Then continual zapping drew Animo's attention to the sphere. Morph was trying to turn into different experiments to escape, but kept getting zap before he was halfway through. Animo's orange eyes glittered as he said, "but it may be the next best thing."

A few moments later, Dr. Animo was studying some cells from Morph he had extracted. "Remarkable," said Animo, "whomever created you must have been a genius." "Yes, he does like to be called that," said Morph. "With a single thought, you can become one of hundreds of creatures." "It's about time someone started respecting me," said Morph. "Just imagine what kind of creatures I can create from this." Morph's smile vanished as he said, "Excuse me?" "With this alien, I can mutate all life on earth and create a whole new era," said Dr. Animo. "Okay, I was starting to like you but you just spent it. I'm outta here," said Morph and promptly got shocked. "You're not going anywhere," said Animo, "you're going to give my Transmodulator the perfect energy source." "I bet this has me put in a bubble," muttered Morph.

"Hmm, a cube, that's a new one for me," said Morph. "Now, what to choose," said Animo as he perused his collection of animals. He stopped in front of a cage holding a horned lizard and said, "This will do." He picked it up and put it in front of the Transmodulator Telescope he built in the Everglades. "Prepare to become the first of a new species," said Animo and he activated the ray. Green energy was zapped out of Morph, sent down the barrel of the telescope, and bombarded the horned lizard. "It's good to be able to make such great changes." Then a small noise attracted his attention and Animo looked down to see the captive Viral Chopsuey still in his pod. "Oh, another test subject, I've always wanted to try my mutant ray on an alien speciman." He rotated the Transmodulator Telescope and pointed it at Chopsuey. "Smile for the birdy," said Animo as he activated the beam.

Meanwhile, Matt and Chris, who have been recovering from last time, had been alerted to Morph being 'mole-napped' and were all around the giant molehill. "We could go in and follow the tunnel," said Kala. "Normal mole tunnels don't last very long," said Chip, "I'm not going to be in this one when it collapses." "Why don't we trying using the tracker chip in Morph," said Matt, "that's how we found him last time he was kidnapped." "That time we had a high-tech radar system at our disposal," said Draco, "unless the mutant comes out of that tunnel, I'm not setting foot inside it."

And at about that moment, a mutant did come out of the hole, but it wasn't the star-nosed mole mutant. It looked like a giant horned lizard, except purple with a spade-shaped tail and upturned teeth sticking out of his mouth. "Does that lizard look like it's been cross-bred with someone we know?" asked Lilo. The lizard slammed its tail on the ground, causing the ground to shake and made everyone fall down. "Oh, yeah, Richter." The Richter-lizard roared and slammed its tail again. "Looks like Animo managed to harness Morph's DNA to his mutation ray," said Ben. "Ya think?" said Gwen. "Keep it off the ground," said Chip, "it can make earthquakes if its tail can't hit the ground." Stitch and 627 leapt at the Richter-lizard, but it squirted a stream of red liquid from the corners of its eyes into their faces. Immediately the two of them started making all sorts of disgusted sounds. "Horned lizards squirt blood out their eyes to make predators not eat them," explained Max, "it's supposed to be very effective on canine predators."

Kala, however, had a different idea. She quickly went off to grab some rope and headed straight towards the Richter-lizard's back end. The mutant lizard slammed its tail at Kala, but she jumped and landed on its back. She quickly tied the rope around its neck and then threw a loop of rope around the end of its tail. She jumped off and then made a cheeky gesture at the lizard. The Richter-lizard turned around and tried to splat her, but ended up flipping itself onto is back. Quickly, Kala used more rope to tie up the lizard's legs and immobilize it. "Wow," said Matt, "that was almost too easy to be fun." Then there was bellowing inside the molehill. "I don't this will be though."

Then a different kind of mutant came out of the tunnel. It didn't look like a hybrid, but was obviously alien in origin. In fact, the six spikes on his back, the four spikes on his head in the shape of a mohawk, and the green fur looked awfully familiar. "Is that V-Chopsuey?" asked Stitch. "Not anymore," said Chopsuey as it swatted the experiments away with one of his four arms, "Animo's made me better than any of you. Better than any experiment or viral clone. Better than anyone!" "He is definetly Chopsuey's clone," said Lilo, "he's got an inferiority complex as big as his." Viral Chopsuey was about to take another swipe, when it felt some blasts from behind his back. He looked back to see Matt with a plasma sphere in his hand. "Is that the best you can do?" said the twice-mutated clone and fired a beam of pure energy at Matt, blowing him, and anyone else beside him, several feet back. V-Chopsuey then picked up the tied-up Richter-lizard and jumped back into the tunnel. "I'd like to stay and fight," he said, "but Animo's got bigger plans." Then he slammed the Richter-lizard's tail on the tunnel wall and caused the molehill to collapse.

After this, the whole group decided to split up into groups to find Animo's lair using tracker devices that are locked onto Morph's homing chip. As Ben, Matt, and Stitch went off in one direction, Stitch asked, "So why aren't we all going as one group?" "We need to find Animo's lair fast, and we're going to do that by covering more ground." "But what's the rush?" "If Animo can use Morph's power to mutate animals into experiments and experiments into super-mutants, who knows what else he could do?" Matt shook the tracker and said, "If only we were higher up, I could get better reception on this thing." Ben twisted the dial on the Omnitrix and said, "One alien elevation coming right up," and slammed the face down.

At Animo's lair, Dr. Animo was doing the traditional, if a bit cliché, mad scientist's laugh. "My tests were a bigger success than I could have imagined," said the insane doctor, "this blob is even better than that watch, nevertheless, I wouldn't mind having that too." "Hey Quackenstein!" yelled Morph from his prison, "when are you letting me out of here?" "Depends," said Animo, "what day is today?" "Tuesday," answered Morph. Animo counted on his fingers, "Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, NEVER!"

Suddenly there was an explosion near the front door. "It sounds like we've got unwanted guests," said Animo. A few seconds later, Matt and Stitch came in riding on Stinkfly. "Science project's over, Dr. Animo," said Matt. Animo smiled and said, "Aw, Ben Tennyson, just who I was thinking about. And as my favorite alien too, how thoughtful. It will be so splendid to use that watch's DNA for a bit experimenting, like on your friends." "Experiment this!" cried Stitch and he leaped down from the ceiling at Animo. He was interupted by a tentacle from the muzzle of the mole mutant. "Put him down," growled the mutated Chopsuey clone, "he's mine." The mole mutant flung Stitch at V-Chopsuey who smacked him into a wall. As Stinkfly kept the mutant mole and the Richter-lizard busy, Matt landed in front of Animo and said, "Let Morph go." "You wouldn't hit an old man, would you?" said Animo. "You're no man," said Matt. "You're right. I'm far superior." Then he put on his oversized gauntlets and fired a blast at Matt that sent him into the opposite wall. "And Lilo said Chopsuey had an inferiority complex," he muttered.

Suddenly the mutant mole appeared in front of Matt and opened its fang-filled mouth to swallow him whole. Then a ball of red energy appeared out of nowhere and sent the mole flying. Matt looked in the direction the energy blast came from, groaned, and said, "Speaking of which, here's the King of Inferiority Complexes himself." NegaMorph was standing in the dooryway to Animo's lair with his right arm still extended. "Alright, Lynch," he growled pointing his hand-mouth at Matt, "hand over V-621." Matt shrugged and said, "Take him if you can." NegaMorph looked confused for a second before Stinkfly appeared overhead and covered him from head to foot in thick mucus. "Nice going Ben," said Matt before the Richter-lizard attacked him. Matt fought but the lizard managed to rip his shirt. "Aw man, that was one of my good shirts," said Matt before going into hybrid form and slamming the Richter-lizard on the ground with more force than one of Richter's earthquake slams.

Suddenly Matt heard the sound of a machine warming up and looked up to see the Transmodulator-telescope's barrel right in front of him. "Welcome to my world," said Animo before hitting Matt full-on with his mutant ray. However, when the green light faded away, Matt was exactly the same way he was before. "Hmm, since your current form seems to neither terrestial or extraterrestial, you aren't affected either way. Oh well," Animo pointed the machine at the mucus-shell NegaMorph was in, "I'm sure I'll get a more impressive result from him." Not wanting to find out what the ray would do to NegaMorph, Matt fired a plamsa sphere at the part where Morph was being contained in. The plasma attack bounced off harmlessly. "It'll take a more powerful blast to break that container," said Animo. Fortunately, Stitch, who was still fighting the mutant Viral Chopsuey, heard what Animo said and jumped onto the Transmodulator-telescope's barrel and said a very naughty phrase in his native language. Viral Chopsuey roared and threw an energy blast at Stitch, who moved out of the way, and hit Morph's container, shattering it.

"No matter," said Dr. Animo, "I have enough reserve power to take care of the rest of you." Matt was about to respond when NegaMorph's arm burst out of his mucus prison and grabbed Matt around the throat. Matt was yanked back to NegaMorph while the Shadow Clone removed the rest of himself from his prison. "You know," said Matt, who was gagging a bit from the tight grip, "you're a lot like Morph when it comes to determination." "I'm nothing like him!" yelled NegaMorph, "I'm his complete opposite!" "Then this shouldn't hurt," said Stinkfly as he flew down and dug his stinger into NegaMorph's back. NegaMorph yelped and dropped Matt. As Stinkfly hauled NegaMorph up into the air, Morph seemed to get an idea and quickly yelled out alien language to Stinkfly. "Huh?" asked Stinkfly. Morph pointed at the part on the Transmodulator where his container was and mimiced dropping something. "I sure hope you know what you're doing," said Stinkfly as he flew up high. Dr. Animo aimed at him and said, "Now to start a new era in evolution." Stinkfly threw NegaMorph at the part where Morph's container was. He landed there just as Animo was activating the machine.

The affect was unexpected to say the least. NegaMorph's negative molecular energy was sucked from his body and combined with the charging mutation ray. Since the ray was charged with positive molecular energy, the two caused a collosal counter-reaction. The first part that happened was a wave of red molecular energy came out of the Transmodulator and spread throughout the lair. The only affects it had were demutating Animo's mutants and releasing the locks on the cages holding the animals. It also made the Omnitrix powerdown instantly and turn Stinkfly back into Ben. Ben would have been hurt by the fall if Morph hadn't moved to have Ben land on top of him. But then the stampede of animals escaping out the door wasn't that comfortable either. Before Dr. Animo could get away, Matt went behind him and handcuffed him. "Time to put you in a cage," he said.

Suddenly the Transmodulator-telescope started rattling violently and sparks of electricity came out of it. "You fools!" cried Animo, "you pushed it into the critical level." "Which means we got to get out of here," said Ben. "Where's Viral Chopsuey?" asked Stitch. "Over here," said a familiar voice. Stitch looked and saw NegaMorph holding Viral Chopsuey by the neck. "Thanks for demutating this guy," said NegaMorph, "he'll be much easier to assimilate now." Before Stitch could make any moves, NegaMorph jumped inside his shadow, dragging Viral Chopsuey with him, and sped away. "Choota," muttered Stitch.

"We'll never be able to escape the explosion," said Matt. "Then we have to do something about the Transmodulator," said Stitch. "We can't fix it," said Ben. "But we can tone it down," said Morph and he transformed into Shrink. His antennas glowed bright pink before zapping the Transmodulator with a pink ray. The machine continued to emit sparks and smoke as it grew smaller and smaller. By the time it was about to blow, it was the size of a pocket telescope. So when it did explode, the explosion was a minute fraction of what it could have been. As Morph turned back to his original form, Ben said, "I guess I owe you an apology." "Save it till we're back at the Rustbucket," said Morph, "but first let's send this whackjob to the asylum where he belongs."

Sometime after that, everyone was back in the Rustbucket. "So, we lost the Virus Clone, but we beat Animo," said Gwen. "And I learned that respect isn't what it's cracked up to be and the respect you should accept is for as you are as a person," said Morph. "I still don't get that pen beats sword saying," said Ben. "We thought you'd say something like that," said Draco, "so that's why we had it arranged for Morph to hit you with that giant pen till the lesson sticks in your head." Ben looked behind him to see Morph holding an enormous ballpoint pen saying the alien equivilant of 'It's payback time!' As the others watched Morph whack Ben over the head, Chip said, "You know, that's taking it a bit too literally." "Yeah, but we should let him have his fun," said Draco.

* * *

There's another chapter. Sorry it took me so long. My brother's developed an annoying habit of watching TV movies around the time I normally work on fanfictions. This probably won't be as good as the other ones, but I promise the next chapter will be much better. Keep an eye out for it and please review. 


	5. Ghoulwyrm

The Omnitrix Ordeal

The darkened room seemed to suck any light that was admitted. The room's four occupants, two Atlantean humans from the master dimension and two Dracons from the Mythicos council sat silently, watching the double door entranceway.

All of the four wore equal grim expressions as the doors hissed open and two Atlantean battle drones came in, dragging a third figure. The newcomer looked similar to a Dracon in basic shape but that was where any resemblance vanished.

Instead of having scales, the creature had grey clammy skin with the grooves of an Ectonurite on its neck. The torso also had markings that showed through the purple and brown uniform it wore. Instead of having a membrane like normal Dracons, the creature's front limbs were wrapped in a mummy-like bandage. The claws on its hands were longer than that of a Dracon and dark blue in color. Mounted on its back was a pair of lightning-rods. What looked like purple bolts were planted in its back and along its long neck. Right before it terminated at the head, there were three rib-like spines growing on the neck. The head was like a Dracon skull with the ears the same bony white color. Its purple eyes were in a groove connected to the grooves on its neck and it habitually swiveled one eye down one groove and back. But the most startling thing about it was the mouths. The main mouth opened normally and sideways like a Loboan, but there was a horn on its forehead which ended in an Ectonurite mouth.

One of the Dracons spoke first, addressing the creature, "Ghoulwyrm…you know why you are here." The creature addressed as Ghoulwyrm just smirked as the Dracon continued. "You helped the dark one, Echidra attempt to destroy our world. When she failed, you left her service and went your separate ways into Atlantean territory…" Suddenly one of the humans leapt up and shouted, "…AND WERE RESPONCIBLE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF 6 COLONIES! YOU MURDERED MILLIONS ON A WHIM! I SHOULD KILL YOU NOW…" The second human laid a hand on the first's shoulder and said something calming while Ghoulwyrm just laughed horribly as the second human continued from where the Dracon had left off.

"You then attempted to hijack one of our planetary construction ships and were apprehended…" the human noticed Ghoulwyrm's expression. "You really have no remorse for what you did," he said sadly as Ghoulwyrm laughed and finally spoke "You can't do anything to me. I'm already dead," he said in a voice which has the deepness of a Dracon but the ethereal rasp of an Ectonurite.

The first human suddenly grinned horribly and said, "That's what you think…take him to Devil's Tower!" The two drones dragged the laughing lich from the room.

'**Devil's Tower' Tri-Max Correctional Base**

The Atlantean guard kept a distance as several of the bases drones shoved the struggling lich into a holding cell. "Warden? Is that cell field gonna hold him?" the guard said to a crystal on the wall.

The crystal pulsed gently and a female voice stated calmly, "All systems are at 100 efficiency." The guard nodded and turned back to the cell, jumping backwards as he got a close up of Ghoulwyrm who was right against the field. "When I get out of here…you're first, Human," he said to the guard.

The guard shivered but regained his composure. "You've been sentenced to life petrifaction…You're never getting out. Warden? Proceed," he said in a shaking voice.

A green beam hit Ghoulwyrm in the small of the back, causing him to howl as the petrifaction gun did its work. Finally the petrified dracolich was standing in the cell. The guard shuddered at the horrifying expression locked on its face. "Warden…make doubly sure that no moisture gets in that cell…I don't want him ever getting out…"

**Present Day…**

The gang have traveled to Wyoming and was taking a tour of one of the amazing natural monuments of America, Devil's Tower. If you can call it a tour. The 'tour guide' kept stumbling, getting words mixed up, and was hardly being friendly. "Why'd we go on this lame tour?" asked Ben. "Grandpa thought it would be a good experience," said Gwen. "Emphasis on 'thought'," said Lilo. "You know there are rumors of their being a treasure here," said Chris. "Sir, that is silly fantasy and stuff I'd rather you not talk about it," said the tour guide. As they were heading towards a fork in the road, Matt said to himself, "I've got my own tour in mind," and sneaked down the other tunnel.

Matt walked through the darkened tunnels that were lit every few feet by hanging electric lamps. Some hieroglyphs of some sort were on one of the walls. Matt stopped to get a closer look muttering; "Now this is more like it…spooky stuff on the walls…GYAH!" The yell was caused someone had sneaked up on him. Matt spun and saw Ben behind him. "What the…You should be with the tour," Matt said accusingly.

Ben grinned and answered, "So should you…" Matt paused and finally said, "Good point." Ben looked at the markings and asked, "Who do you think made these. Egyptians?" Matt shook his head, "The Egyptians never came to America, at least not until Columbus discovered it and these are too old for that. Perhaps they're Native American?" "No," said Ben, "I've seen Native American paintings and this doesn't look anything like them." Matt scratched his head and asked, "What do you think it means?" The sound of guns loading behind them drew their attention. They looked to see more tour guides pointing plasma blasters at them. "We're not quite sure either," said one 'tour guide' "but they should say that you've made a big mistake."

"Looks like Romanov's men," said Matt pulling out his own blaster. Ben twisted the Omnitrix's face and said, "Let's see how tough they are when Heatblast melts their guns." He pressed the face down and a flash of green light enveloped him. "This is odd," said a nasal voice from Ben's direction. "What?" said Matt turning towards him, "you've gone alien all the- YIKES!" 'Yikes' pretty well describes the alien Ben turned into. It looked a bit like an anthro bat with no wings. It wore a pair of black pants with the Omnitrix logo on the waist. Its head had a large pair of bat ears and a mouth, but no eyes. They were all over his upper body. All of them were small and green with a large green one in the center of his chest. "What alien is that?" asked Matt. "A new one," said Ben.

"I don't what you turned into," said one henchman, "but I'm going to turn you into Swiss cheese." He shot a blast at Ben who dived to the left. The light from the blast irritated his eyes which then shot out energy beams. The henchmen narrowly avoided the beams which the wall and caused quite large blast holes. "Nice attack," said Matt, "what do you call that?" Ben looked thoughtful and said, "I think I'll call him Eye Guy." "Eye Guy? That's the best you can-" Matt was interrupted by the sudden firing of plasma blasters.

"I don't think now's the time to talk," said Eye Guy and he fired more energy beams at Romanov's thugs. Matt was returning fire with his plasma rifle as he said, "We have to get back to the others before their 'tour guide' tries to harm them." "Then let's give them a bigger eyeful," said Eye Guy and he used his large eye in his chest to blast the ceiling above Romanov's men. The rocks broke loose and fell on top of the thugs, pinning them down. "Now how do we get back?" asked Matt. "This way," said Eye Guy pointing down one tunnel. "How do you know?" asked Matt as they started running down the tunnel. "These eyes can do more than blast you know."

When the two of them finally made their way back to the others, they've found that the 'tour guide' was out cold and tied up. "What happened here?" asked Matt. "This guy tried to shoot us when we asked about the blasting but Max knocked him out," said Chris, "who's that with you?" "It's me guys," said Eye Guy. "Ben? Is that a new alien?" asked Gwen. "Brand-new," answered Eye Guy. "Wow!" said Lilo, "you look so cool." Matt and Chris exchanged glances. Matt knew that Lilo really fancied the supernatural and bizarre, she was pretty enamoured with Ben's 'horror aliens' when he showed them. Matt found them okay to certain degrees. Benwolf: cool; Frankenvolt: very useful; Benmummy: also useful but more limited; Ghostfreak: iffy at best. But Eye Guy was a bit much for Matt's tastes.

It took Matt a few minutes to tell them about what had happened. By that time, the Omnitrix timed out and turned Eye Guy back into Ben. "So the tales about the treasure are true," said Max. "And I have a bad feeling that the treasure isn't silver and gold," said Matt. "Why's that?" asked Kala. "Because those markings are similar to Ancient glyphs. And Ancient ruins are infamous for their advanced weapon-tech."

"That kind of firepower in Romanov's hands, that can never be good," said Chip, "we have to find that treasure or whatever it is before Romanov and his goons do." "That could take forever," said Gwen. Suddenly a communicator on the unconscious 'tour-guide' beeped and said, "All men to Section L-6. We've found something." Matt picked up the communicator and looked at the map on it. "This should help," he said.

The group headed down deeper into the tunnels, following the path that Romanov's men had made. Finally a turn in the main tunnel turned into a vast cavern. A huge tower made out of the crystalline growth that the ancients seemed to favour could be seen, taking up the main space of the cavern. The summit of the tower couldn't be seen very well but looked like it went into the cavern top. "Now THAT'S big," said Matt, impressed before spotting Romanov's men lower down, running towards the base of the tower where a large, beetle-like droid with a laser-drill on top stood in front of a hole. Romanov's men ran past it into the hole.

"I guess we go inside," said Matt, finding a ladder leading to the floor. A small camp seemed to have been set up near the tower, various mining gear and scanners lying around. Matt kicked a door open into one of the huts set up and saw a group of frightened people in cave tour uniforms. As one they backed up till Matt opened the cell. "I'm Matt and I'll be your rescuer today…please climb the ladder and run for it." The thankful cave tour staff didn't need telling twice and filed past him, not paying any attention to the experiments that were looking at the drill-droid.

"Pretty neat-looking equipment," said Stitch. "I wonder how they work it?" asked Lilo. "There is only one way to tell how something works," said Morph as he climbed up on top of the drill-droid, "Push every button until something happens." As Morph started pressing random buttons, Chip said, "Morph, do ever consider that your actions could have negative outcomes?" "Say what?" said Morph as he pressed a big red button. "He means you could make something bad happen," said Draco. Suddenly the drill-droid started making an angry-sounding humming noise. "And apparently you just did." "Testing hardness level," beeped the machine and grabbed Draco by the neck. It then pounded Draco's head into the wall several times until a hole appeared. A disoriented Draco then said, "Look there goes the circus train. Everybody wave at the caboose. Choo-choo," and fell over.

"I can fix it," said Morph and started punching more buttons. The drill-droid then started letting off whistling noises and said, "Battle mode activated. Searching for enemy target." It spun around so fast that Morph fell off of it. The machine spotted Morph and said, "Target acquired. Commencing destruction…" then the drill started spinning at high speeds. Morph moaned and said, "I hate going to the dentist." Then he ran off screaming in one direction with the drill-droid following. "Shouldn't we help him?" asked Gwen. "Don't worry," said Draco as he regained his senses, "he's been chased by worse than that. Trust me."

The group walked into the darkened tower. It seemed that Romanov and his men hadn't bothered to set up lighting in some of the tunnels. The tunnels were punctuated by hundreds of doors leading to small rooms. "This place reminds me of a prison," muttered Chris, peering into one of the 'cells'. Suddenly the crystals on the roof lit up red and several of Romanov's men came round the corner at a run. "There they are…shoot the…gurk," said one, cut off mid-order by a shot into his neck from Chris.

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Not far away, one of Romanov's men, known as 'Wesker' to his friends, leaned back in a cell, taking a personal break. He slipped his helmet off and pulled out a bottle of whisky from his pack. The only other occupant was some kinda gargoyle that creeped him out. He poured some into the cap and gave a mock toast to the statue. "Here's to you, ugly," he said before downing it. His radio crackled, "_Confirmed…intruder in entry 4…there they are…shoot the 'BLAM'…gurk…fzzzt_".

Wesker jumped as the radio went dead, dropping his bottle which smashed, showering the foot of the statue. He pulled his helmet on and stood still, waiting impatiently for the visors electronics to load, not hearing the crackles behind him. He felt a sudden pain in his chest and lost his breath. He was dragged round and head a guttural voice say, "Nobody calls me ugly, human." His visor finished loading and he could see a hand punched through his armour. He looked up to see the person who had dealt the wound…and screamed.

Not too far away, NegaMorph was walking down one of the crystalline corridors. "Call the bounty hunters, NegaMorph. Find the Viral Clone, NegaMorph. Walk the deadly cyber-lizard, NegaMorph. Bossy, bossy, bossy," NegaMorph muttered under his breath. The latter referred to the latest edition to the team, Tuatara. The lizard-mutant was docile so long as he was fed with fresh meat. But he apparently won't stop attacking NegaMorph until he leaves a scar. Doing to NegaMorph's regenerative abilities, the attacks never stopped, and were becoming increasingly annoying. But it was amusing to the different shades of colours Romanov turned as he was forced to rent the bounty hunter he had designed himself.

Suddenly, NegaMorph heard a scream. The kind of scream that'll curdle your blood, sent shivers down your spine, and raise the hairs on your neck. NegaMorph lacked all of these, but it was unnerving for him. Nevertheless, he was able to walk towards where the source of the scream was. Everything seemed normal when NegaMorph spotted one of the 'cells' that was open. He walked over and looked in. The only thing inside was one of Romanov's men, Wesker or whatever he called himself. Except that his skin was as pale as a corpse's and he had four puncture wounds on his neck.

"Euch, what happened to you?" asked NegaMorph. "Quick," wheezed Wesker, "kill me quickly." "Sheesh, working for Romanov isn't that bad." "I'm dying an agonizing death." "Oh, now you're just using that as an excuse." "Please." Maybe it was the pathetic way he was begging or how much pain was in his face, but something in NegaMorph couldn't let him stand watching him suffer like this. Unfortunately, it was the same part that kept him from killing because he wanted to. NegaMorph opened his hand-mouth and blasted Wesker through the heart. Wesker managed to say, "Thank you," before dying.

Then NegaMorph noticed that there was no blood coming out of the death wound. In fact, from what he could see, the insides weren't crimson at all. A quick scan confirmed that Wesker's body had been drained of all its blood. "What could have done this?" he asked himself. "The same thing that's going to do it to you," said a disembodied voice. NegaMorph looked up to see a fanged mouth shirk off its invisibility and close around him.

Having the upper half of your body inside a giant mouth is not the least bit pleasant. Especially if the mouth in question has sharp teeth and very bad breath. So NegaMorph did one of the most resourceful and nastiest things he could have done at the time. He found the tongue of whatever was trying to eat him and bit down on it hard. The thing that was trying to eat him roared with pain and spat him out. NegaMorph looked up the creature and saw some crossbreed between a Dracon and an Ectonurite nursing its black and white striped tongue. NegaMorph studied the creature for a minute before saying, "And I thought Kevin was a bad mix-up"

Then the creature spoke with the mouth on the end of the horn on its forehead, "Do have any idea how much that hurts?" "About as much at my eyes from looking at you," said NegaMorph. Two bandages on the creature's forelimbs unwound and grabbed NegaMorph. He was held up to the monster's face. "Perhaps you are unaware of whom you are meeting." "Enlighten me." "I am Ghoulwyrm. I am one of the greatest achievements of necromancy ever conceived and I've laid waste to the colonies of Atlantis. Don't mock me with such impunity," said Ghoulwyrm.

NegaMorph looked confused, "Atlantis? That was, like, three millennia ago or something." Ghoulwyrm's eyes blinked and he said, "I thought they kept me petrified for a long time. Hard to tell the time when you can only use telepathy to a limited extent and no one's around to listen to. Be it as it may, the world will soon tremble at my awesome powers." "Dude, your breath's enough to make me tremble." Ghoulwyrm scowled and wrapped more bandages around NegaMorph. NegaMorph struggled to get free but something about the bandages made it impossible to squeeze through. "As soon as I've found some more mortals to feed upon," said Ghoulwyrm, "you're the first I will destroy." Then he became intangible and floated through the wall.

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Meanwhile, Matt and the experiments arrival was almost definitely common knowledge. Matt punched one merc in the face and got a glimpse of Romanov yelling at a squad of men and pointing in Matt's general direction. 'You make enemies like a pro…this is better then those comics you read' said V-627 in his head as Romanov seemed to lose his temper, dropped his human form and physically threw one of the mercs at Draco before firing a few lighting bolts around.

Chris shot a trooper sneaking up on Matt and said "Romanov's gotta temper." And the two ducked as a second merc who had tried to run away was thrown in their direction. "Say…where's…ah," said Matt, about to inquire to the location of Tuatara before spotting the cyborg heading for Stitch and Chip. He ran past Chris and fired a shot into Tuatara's back armour, earning a roar and Tuatara's attention. "Pick on someone your own size!" Matt yelled before V-627 added privately 'You mean like us?'

Tuatara folded out his wrist cannon and fired a few shots, knocking Matt, who'd just managed to shield onto his butt and slid across the floor into the opposite wall. He was prepared this time as the cybernetic mutant ran across the battle at Matt, pulling out an EM grenade and tossing it at Tuatara. Tuatara's eyes crossed as the E.M.P knocked out his implants and crumpled.

"You guys okay?" asked Matt. "Yes," said Stitch. Suddenly Romanov roared and the three of them narrowly ducked a lightning bolt. "You didn't tell us Romanov was really a Splitter," said Chip. "Musta slipped my mind," said Matt. "Anything else you forgot to mention?" asked Chip. "Nothing, unless are either of you susceptible to magnetism?" "I am, why?" Suddenly Romanov drew one of his guns and fired a beam that hit Chip. Suddenly Chip was drawn towards Romanov until he was in his hand. Chip chuckled nervously and said, "So, how are the wife and kids?" "I'm not married," said Romanov. "I thought so." Then Romanov threw Chip into a wall.

Meanwhile, Ben and Gwen were having a bit of trouble holding off Romanov's goons. As Ben knocked another thug out with a shovel he had picked up earlier, he said to his cousin, "Don't you have any spells that can help us?" "Let me try this one," said Gwen, "_Solus aparata!_" Suddenly a flash of bright light appeared. It was apparently meant to blind the enemies, but it was absorbed by the crystal walls and did nothing but cause distracting bits of coloured lights. "Nice job, Gwen," said Ben sarcastically. Then the Omnitrix turned green and let off a ding. "Let me show you how real crystal fights," said Ben and he twisted the face to Diamondhead and slammed it down. Instead, Ben turned into a large yellow and white creature. "Oh man," said Cannon Bolt, "can't you go with what I pick?" Then Cannon Bolt noticed ten of Romanov's men coming at it in a triangular formation. Cannon Bolt curled up into a ball and rolled right at them. All ten of the thugs were thrown in all directions. "There's no sound as pleasing as the sound of crashing pinheads," said Cannon Bolt and rolled towards another brace of mercs.

Most of the remaining conscious mercenaries were now seeking alternate employment, starting with running as fast as they could outta there, leaving their ex-employer looking rather alone. "Get back here, you morons!" he screamed after the last retreating figure before realising he was surrounded by people and experiments he had not long ago been shooting at.

"Oh…kris'kao!" He swore in native splitter seeing the angry expressions on Matt, Chris, the Tennysons and the experiments. "You will never defeat me…I knew they hadn't deserted me!!" He said, pointing behind the group. Matt turned and saw the mercs coming back at a dead run. The gang got ready to fight again but were surprised when the mercs just ran by in wordless terror, two stopping to grab Romanov under the arms and drag him after them, despite his objections.

The reason arrived shortly after. Some kind of…zombie Dracon/Ectonurite hybrid was standing there with NegaMorph tangled in bandages. "What the heck?" said Chris first before the creature spoke creepily, "Ah…finally, some better food," before tossing what was revealed to be a dead merc aside and then proceeding to charge the group.

Matt pulled out his ion staff and began swiping at some more of the bandages that the creature began sending out. "Undead…why is it always undead? If it's not psycho cyborg lizards, large dragons chasing us or talking Chainsaws and dolls from hell…why can't we meet a normal alien villain for once?...just for a change of pace," said Chris, blasting some bandages trying to tie his legs together.

Matt looked up suddenly. "Is the ceiling shaking?" he said before a red beam blew out of the ceiling, catching the bandages holding NegaMorph, releasing the now thoroughly P.O.'ED shadow experiment. Moments later, PlasMorph riding the drill-droid crashed down from the ceiling in a very recently-made hole. The drill-droid bounced off Ghoulwyrm's neck before landing right next to Matt. "Where have you been?" asked Matt. "On one very crazy ride," said Morph. Suddenly the drill-droid lurched forward towards Ghoulwyrm. The lightning rods on Ghoulwyrm's back extended and shot bolts of purple lightning at the drill-droid. Morph hopped off in time, but the drill-droid's circuits were fried.

NegaMorph, who had just finished removing the last of the bandages from his body, bellowed, "GHOULWYRM! YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!" Ghoulwyrm simply straightened out his neck which had bent into an irregular way the drill-droid landing on him and said, "Bring it on." NegaMorph let out a barrage of negative energy blasts which Ghoulwyrm countered with his purple plasma-flames. As our heroes watched this battle, Lilo asked, "So, who should we help." "We should help the lesser of the two evils," said Chip. After a couple of seconds of pondering, Draco said, "NegaMorph's shorter." "Close enough," said Matt.

Then everyone started converging their attacks on Ghoulwyrm. While Ghoulwyrm was a powerful fighter, he was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. So he decided to try another attack. His primary mouth split into four parts, showing the hole leading to the throat. Matt realized what he was about to do and managed to shout, "No! Wait!" before it was too late. Ghoulwyrm released a purple Loboan howl that knocked everyone back. "Oh man," said Matt, "I just got over the earache I got the last time I got hit by a Loboan howl."

As Ghoulwyrm inhaled for another blast, a piece of the ceiling fell on his head. He looked up to see that cracks were appearing all over the ceiling, as well as the walls and floors. "What's going on?" asked Kala. "That howl destabilized the crystal," said Max, "this place is going to collapse." "Then he's going down with it," said NegaMorph and he threw himself at Ghoulwyrm. "Shouldn't we stop him?" asked Lilo. "He's a self-regenerating plasma blob," said Chris, "he'll be alright." The gang quickly made towards the nearest exit before the crystal tower caved in on itself. Cannon Bolt was helpful as he could carry all of the experiments in his shell. They were able to make it out just in time before the tower became a pile of shards. "Well, wasn't that an experience," said Max. "Yes it was," said Gwen, "but let's not do it again."

Sometime later after nightfall, the moon was shining down on the top of Devil's Tower. Suddenly a greyish shadow appeared to glide out of the smooth rock surface. It floated upwards and started to take form. In a minute, Ghoulwyrm was hovering over the top of Devil's Tower. "Those fools think they can get rid of me that, but they're wrong. Dead wrong. I'll get even with them, once I've found a way of this planet." Then his pointed ears picked up something. He flew invisibly over to where two of Romanov's thugs were apparently having some kind of debate over gun types. "What a good way to start," said Ghoulwyrm and he swooped down on the unsuspecting men.

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Another chapter, another villain unleashed upon the universe. And this one is a dracopyre/dracolich. You can count on seeing Ghoulwyrm again, **for he will be involved in dark plots that could potentially alter the balance of life and death in the multiverse. **Well, maybe not that dramatic, but he is going to be a considerable enemy. Keep an eye out for the next chapter. Please review.

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	6. Oil and Water

**Retrieval Saga **

The Omnitrix Ordeal

**Chapter 6: Oil and Water**

After the incident at Devil's Tower, the gang moved to a much different location. Milwaukee, Wisconsin is on the shores of Lake Michigan. It is the largest city in Wisconsin, but it is more often known as the one of the most romantic cities in the US. Even though romance wasn't the first thing on the experiments' minds, they started reminiscing romantic thoughts.

Stitch, Draco, and Morph were staring up the sky, lost in their thoughts. "I miss Angel," said Stitch, "she has such a nice set of pipes." "I miss Contrinus," said Draco, "we would go on flights to see the countryside beneath us." "I miss Reuben," said Morph. Stitch and Draco threw Morph extremely odd looks. "It's been a while since I've had one of his sandwiches," explained Morph.

At that point, Matt, Ben, and Chip came outside. "What are you guys doing?" "We're thinking of our girls," said Draco, "Morph's thinking about lunch." "Ah, who needs girlfriends," said Ben, "you have to spend so much money on flowers, chocolates, and dates. It's more giving than getting. That's why I go solo." "What about that thing between you and Kai?" asked Chip. Suddenly Ben froze up, went into a fettle position, and muttered, "That. Name." "What about you Chip?" asked Matt. "None for me," said Chip, "I'm neither male nor female so I don't get that type of feeling. I'm strictly platonic."

"As for me," said Matt, "I've dated several girls off and on. Got my heart broken couple of times. Or my bones. Of course, species is an important thing. Once I went on a date with a girl from an avian world. There was only one kind of kiss we could do." "What's that?" asked Stitch. "Pecking." Morph made a sound similar to a drum and cymbal. "Of course my love life's suffered a bit since I crossed the Hamsterviel Empire. You can't really get a mood going if you're running from laser-toting droids." "What exactly do you look for in a girl?" Draco asked out of curiosity. Matt rubbed his chin and said, "Let's see. Strength and toughness are a necessity, since I live a rough lifestyle. And she's got to have a good sense of humour. Oh, and patient, lots and lots of patient." The others agreed that that girl would definitely need patient. What didn't know was that Kala was listening it to what they were saying.

Suddenly an odd humming sound filled the air. "What's that odd humming sound?" asked Ben. "Sounds like it's coming from the lake," said Draco. "But there's nothing out there except some boats, a flock of sea gulls, and the otherworldly Viking ship," said Morph. Matt pulled out his pocket binoculars and said, "I swear, if we have to fight those necromancers again, I'm suing someone." To Matt' immediate relief, the ship was not Viort, which by the way would not a sign the Doom Weapons was here but more like of an extension. The Viking ship in question looked like it was made of alien tech. "I wonder if they're friendly or hostile," said Stitch. Suddenly a laser cannon on the ship was fired and a tree was vaporized by it. "As if we didn't see that coming," said Matt as he started towards the bay.

By the time they got there, the ship had docked itself next to the shore. "I don't know who's on there," said Ben, "but they've made a big mistake messing with us." He activated the Omnitrix and turned into XLR8 in a flash. XLR8 quickly grabbed several rocks and used to them to plug all the laser cannons before they fired. "All right," said the Kineceleran, "come on out so we can kick your butt into space." The hatch door of the ship opened and three aliens stepped out. Matt was expecting the typical bug-eyed monsters he fought on and off, but this was another kind all together.

They had body shapes similar to human women, very attractive women I might add. Their armour, while though alien-advanced, resemble Norse armour. Their skin was blue and had scales like a fish. Their eyes were deep red with pink pupils. The odd thing was that the helmets they wore resembled giant piranhas with cow's horns. Each alien had a different colour of gem on their helmet and their waistband. The one who was apparently the leader had red gems while her followers had green and yellow gems.

"Now this is more like it," thought Matt, "for once I'm not fighting something butt-ugly." "Hello," said Matt in a polite manner, "my name is Matt and you're," suddenly he saw three laser-spears in is face, "very touchy." "You think you can compete with us, puny male?" said the leader. "Compete wasn't the word on my mind," said Matt. "Silence," said the alien, "we Psykeries have seen have you pathetic human males have mismanaged this world and we are putting an end to it." "Oh great," said Draco, "feminists, and not the equal rights feminists, the get-rid-of-all-men Amazon feminists." "Sorry ladies," said XLR8, "that's not gonna happen." He raced forward but was smack aside by a Psykerie's spear. "You think we have not fought a Kineceleran before?" said the Psykerie with the yellow gems. "Let's see if you've fought this," said Chip, letting loose a barrage of viral energy. The Psykeries leapt nimbly out of the way. "Huh, guess they've had."

The one with the green gems suddenly collided with a ball of blue energy. Everyone looked to see Gwen and Kala appearing over the top of the hill. "Good to see you guys," said Matt, "how'd you catch up so quickly?" "I, er, saw you leave," said Kala. "Fellow women," said the leader, "we do not have to fight each other, for we are on the same side. We shall take action against the worthless, spineless, and filthy man-creatures." "Hey I'm not filthy, I had a bath last week," said Morph. "Too much information," said Draco backing away from Morph. Gwen turned to Kala and asked, "Did you get a word of that?" "Not really," said Kala.

"Very well," said the leader, "Sisters! We must resort to Plan Beta!" The Psykeries opened their mouths and started chanting something in a bizarre alien language. Matt looked at Chip and said, "Do you hear a sirenic aria or is it just me?" "I'm not sure," said Chip, "sounds nice, but I can't find myself tapping to the beat." "Me either," said Morph, "Draco what do you think?" But Draco didn't respond. His irises had become a bright pink and he was saying, "What a pretty, pretty song." "Draco, are you alright?" asked Chip. He snapped his fingers in his face, but Draco didn't respond. Curiously, XLR8 and Stitch were acting in a similar manner with the same change of eye colour. "I feel like picking daisies," said Stitch. "Let me help you," said XLR8 and the two of them literally skipped over to a nearby patch of wildflowers.

"What is going on here?" asked Matt. Suddenly a red plasma orb hit in the chest and threw him back several feet. When his eyes had properly aligned again, he was looking up at Kala. Her eyes had changed colour too, but instead of pink, they were a deep red, not to mention she was really angry-looking. "Kala, what are you doing?" asked Matt. "Shut up, you piece of masculine scum," she snarled. "Er, I didn't forget your birthday did I?" asked Matt. Suddenly he was lifted up into the air with a levitation spell. Gwen approached Matt with deep red eyes and said, "Take your male chauvinism elsewhere." Matt was then thrown far away. Suddenly all of the females' attention turned to Chip and Morph. Sensing the approaching pain, Chip said to Morph, "Well Morph, any regrets?" "Only that I don't have a biological mother to cry for," said Morph.

Matt's flight was interrupted after 45 seconds by a very solid cedar tree. He slid to the ground and for a while saw stars circling around his head. He slowly and painfully got up and looked around in confusion. "Let's see," he said, "which way are they?" Suddenly he heard Chip and Morph making screams of terror and pain. "That way," said Matt pointing in the direction of the screams. He trekked through thick undergrowth until he made it back to the spot the Psykeries were in. They were gone along with their ship, Kala, Gwen, Stitch, Draco, and Ben. The only things there were chunks of white plasma and robotic limbs strewn all over the place. Matt noticed Chip's disembodied head lying at his feet, the eye turned off. Matt picked it up and said, "Alas, poor Chip! I knew him well!" The eye flickered back on and said, "Shut up! I'm not dead!" Matt, in his surprise, dropped Chip's head which complained loudly with "Ow!" "Sorry," said Matt. "Just help me put my body together. Just be thankful those Psykeries tore me limb from limb in the literal way." As Matt attached Chip's arms, legs, and head to his body, the chunks of white plasma gathered together and reformed into Morph who complained, "Ow! My head!"

"What was with those aliens?" asked Matt as he stuck on Chip's second left arm. "They were Psykeries," said Chip, "I've read about them and I was hoping that it was all exaggerated. Apparently it's not." "What do you know about?" asked Matt as he reattached Chip's right back leg. "They're from the planet Piscciss, which incidentally is the same planet Ripjaws if from. Anyways, as you can guess, they're a warrior race where the females are dominant in both form and power. They have this stereotype against the men in all species and they are ridiculously obsessed with women's rights." "But what'd they do to the others?" asked Matt as he put Chip's head back on. "They can sing a sirenic battle song that has a strange affect on whoever hears it. Men become girly and useless, the extent depending on the chauvinism of the man. Women become ferocious Amazons and will attack anything against the Psykeries." "I'm probably the same because I'm from the master dimension, so why weren't you brainwashed?"

"Because 'he', like myself, is neither male nor female," said an irritatingly familiar voice. Matt gritted his teeth and turned around to see NegaMorph leaning against a tree. "Can you go away?" said Matt, "we're in a bit of a pickle here." "That maybe true," said NegaMorph, "but you're also in the same boat as me." "What do you mean by that?" asked Morph. NegaMorph exhaled sharply through his teeth and said, "Those dratted Psykeries took over my team and threw Silvia in the brig when they couldn't brainwash her. So I'm asking for a, and I dearly hate saying this, team-up." "Why should we join up with you?" asked Matt. "Because we have better chance of beating those Psykeries together and we're going to get torn apart when they find us anyways." "He's right," said Chip, who was now back together, "I have an idea of how to stop them, but it would require one of us infiltrating the Psykeries' base, which must be in Milwaukee by now. This person should be able to assume a convincing feminine disguise without being feminine themselves." When Chip found everyone looking at him, he muttered, "I really ought to consider myself in my calculations."

A few minutes later, Chip, under the guise of Chixie, walked past the city limits of Milwaukee. What she saw there was chaos. The men were wearing flashy outfits and doing very demeaning things, such as washing clothes and having makeovers. The women, in contrast, where tearing apart everything that shows too much masculinity. "This is really disturbing," said Chixie. "Focus," said NegaMorph through her intercom, "you need to find the target and fast before they catch on." "Where should I go?" asked Chixie. "Try the park," said Matt.

Chixie walked towards Miller Park and stopped at the entrance. She sniggered and all but burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" asked Matt. "Watch," said Chixie and she switched on her camera. There was a stage in the park and the male experiments were dancing ballet on it, wearing tutus. As Matt, Morph, and NegaMorph looked on the monitor connected to Chixie's signal, Matt said, "Ugh, they're making them dance so lamely." "Nah, Draco really does dance like that," said Morph. Draco was weaving and winding like a drunken man, completely out of sync. "Can't dance ballet to save his life." Then Chixie turned her attention to a rather disturbing sight. Chris was wearing a pink dress and picking tulips. Suddenly he stopped and said in a girly voice, "Oh dear, I must get back before the cookies burn in the oven," and scampered off. NegaMorph blinked and said, "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. And he is my worst enemy."

Chixie eventually found what he was looking for planting petunias. "Hello Ben," she said. Ben turned around and said, "How do you know my name?" "It's written on your apron." Ben looked down at the pink apron he was wearing. It had 'Ben' written on it with little hearts. "I know," said Ben, "isn't it pretty." "Yes, charming," said Chixie, "I heard you can help me out with this problem. My computer has a problem and won't turn on. Can you do something about it?" "Sure thing," said Ben and he twisted the face of the Omnitrix and pushed it down. Seconds later, Upgrade was in Ben's place. "Now let's see what we can do about, your, computer." The pink glow in Upgrade's eye was replaced by his normal green. He looked around in confusion and then looked back at Chixie. "Chip, is that you?" "Yes, finally," said Chip as he turned off his hologram, "all the girly stuff was starting to make me sick." "Where are we? What's everyone doing? Why am I wearing this silly apron?" "The Psykeries brainwashed everyone in Milwaukee and you along with them. But I have the plan to snap everyone else out of it." "Count me in. As soon as I get rid of this joke of a cloth."

A few seconds later, Chip-grade was heading towards the place were the Psykeries were broadcasting their song; the Milwaukee Public Radio company. "Now all we need is a computer intercom," said Chip. He looked around and saw an ATM, "Perfect." Chip-grade crossed the street in a discreet manner to avoid suspicion. When they got to the ATM, they used Chip's powers to enter it through the screen. Then they used Upgrade's powers to travel through the electric wires of the building until they reached the main computer. It didn't take long for them to find the Psykerie song, as it was being played all the time. "Let's check the flipside," said Chip-grade and they rearranged the data of the song so it went out backwards. "You sure this will work?" asked Upgrade. "It works with Angel," said Chip, "now we have to get rid of the Psykeries, and that's going to need another of your aliens."

Meanwhile, the Psykeries were celebrating their victory. "This city's only the first sisters," said the leader, "soon we will re-educate every city on this planet." Suddenly there was a series of taps at the front door. "What's that noise?" asked one of the Psykeries. "It sounds like someone's trying to hack the locking system. But no normal thief can penetrate our defences." Suddenly the front door opened and NegaMorph was standing there. "Knock, knock," he said and sent a ball of negative energy at the Psykeries. The Psykeries leapt away and grabbed their laser-spears. Matt stepped through the doorway and said, "Remember me?" and started firing his plasma blaster. The Psykeries leapt nimbly through the plasma charges and knocked Matt off his feet. NegaMorph was then smacked into Matt. "You will pay for desecrating our ship with your male presence," snarled the leader. "No one can defeat the Psykeries in a sneak attack," said the yellow-gemmed Psykerie as she lifted her spear high to deal the finishing blow. "Oh this isn't a sneak attack," said Matt. "It's a distraction," said NegaMorph.

Suddenly a small section of the outside wall crumpled between two rows of razor sharp teeth. Ripjaws stepped through the hole and said, "Nobody makes me where a pink apron and gets away with it." "It's a Volann! Get it!" cried the Psykerie leader. Ripjaws ripped another piece out of the wall to make a shield to block the laser blasts. Chip came in through the hole Ripjaws made and said, "Take off their helmets!" NegaMorph leaped over the yellow-gemmed Psykerie and yanked the helmet off at the same time. "I'm going to save Silvia. See ya," he said and disappeared through a doorway. Chip grabbed the tail of the green-gemmed Psykerie's helmet and spun her around. The helmet slipped off and she flew and hit the wall right next to the door. "Ooh, so close," said Chip, "but just as good." Meanwhile Ripjaws and the leader Psykerie were fighting hand-to-hand. "You don't scare me," she said nervously. "I wouldn't be scared of me if I were you," said Ripjaws. Suddenly Matt crept up behind the Psykerie and pulled off her helmet. Ripjaws took advantage of the Psykerie's surprise and punched her square in the jaw. "Sorry girl," said Ripjaws, "on this world brains beats brawns any day." Then Morph poked his head out of the Omnitrix and asked, "Is it safe to come out?"

Sometime later, after the Galactic Enforcers had taken away the Psykeries, Matt, Ben, and Chip were discussing the day's events. "How'd you know Ripjaws would work against the Psykeries?" asked Ben. "On Piscciss, Volanns hunt Psykeries and are naturally immune to their songs," explained Chip. "What about their helmets?" asked Matt. "Without the venom from the males, female Psykeries can't fight or sing." "Wait a minute, those fish helmets were the guys for that species?" asked Ben. "It's not that unusual," said Chip, "just look at Earth's angler fish." "At lease things are back to normal," said Matt, "even though Chris is still fuming. By the way, has anyone seen Kala?" "She said something about hitting the gym and then going to a comedy club," said Ben. "I wonder why?" said Matt.

* * *

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I hope you like this chapter. For anyone who was offended by this, I am sorry and please don't attack me physically, mentally, or judicially. I promise the next chapter will be a lot better, so keep an eye out for it. Please review. 


	7. ALI Breaks Loose

**Chapter 7:** **A-****LI**** Breaks Loose**

The Rustbucket was travelling through the deserts of New Mexico now. Draco was lying on top to catch the warm rays of sunlight. The others, however, were sweltering from the heat. "Boy is it hot today," said Lilo. "How hot is it?" said everyone. "It's so hot, I put Morph on a frying pan and he fried like an egg," said Chip. Chris laughed and said, "Good joke, Chip." "Who's telling a joke?" Morph was indeed sitting on a frying pan and he had developed some kind of yellow pustule on his head. "Does anybody have any skin cream?" he said. "You're made of plasma," said Kala, "it wouldn't work." "Well you put on perfume and it doesn't work," retorted Morph. "Yes it does!" snapped Kala, "mind your own business!"

"Gwen," said Ben in a sluggish tone, "can't you use a spell to make it cooler?" "No, I don't know how to do it yet," said Gwen in an equally sluggish tone. "Then go turn on the radio." "Go turn it on yourself." "I asked first." Gwen groaned and with a Herculean effort, switched on the radio. "In local news," said the radio broadcast, "the SACT has bagged another batch of aliens today." "SACT?" asked Matt. "Special Alien Capture Team," explained Ben. "These four aliens were shown to have incredible elemental powers and they apparently have some form of rabies, as they keep attempting to bite people." Matt sat up and said, "Those sound like Viral Clones." "These aliens will be brought in for examination at Area 51." "Grandpa!" called Ben and Gwen. "I'm on it," said Max and he turned the Rustbucket onto another road.

Some time later, the Rustbucket pulled up to the chain-link gate to the military base. "How do you know we'll get in?" asked Matt. "Oh, I had a few contacts from my Plumber days pull a couple of strings," said Max. A couple of soldiers approached the Rustbucket and asked for identification. "Let them go," said a voice, "they're all clear." Then none other that Lt. Steel approached the RV. "Maxwell Tennyson," he said in a friendly voice, "I was wondering when you would pay a visit to our little facility." "You know him?" asked Ben. "Know him? There isn't a guy here that doesn't know about what he done in the Plumbers. Those guys are the morale stories that keep us going. I'm just sorry I didn't recognize you at San Francisco or the Omnitrix on your grandson's wrist. What can I help you guys with?" Obviously taken aback by the smoothness of the situation, Max said, "We, uh, just wanted to check on those aliens you caught today." "Good, we can't a proper identity on them, come on in."

As the group moved through the military base, Chris asked, "Where are you keeping those aliens?" "With the other most dangerous aliens," said Lt. Steel. "What else do you keep here?" asked Lilo. "Pretty much anything alien-related that the public can't handle. Not to mention that large telescope over there." They were passing a large telescope that a scientist was using. The scientist looked through and said to himself, "Just imagine how close this device brings us to other life forms in the universe." Suddenly Morph appeared in front of the lense and made a funny face. The scientist screamed and fell out off his chair. Morph laughed as he hopped back down to the ground and said, "Keep them on their toes, I always say."

Then they came to a building with thick metal walls. Lt. Steel scanned his hand and eye and the door opened wide. "This is where we keep our nastiest aliens," he said. "We would send them to the Null Void, but we want to keep a few for studying." They came to a window looking into a room where a large alien that looked like Cannon Bolt was in. The alien had plates like a pangolin and instead of having sharp teeth; it had horse-like incisors. "That is a Vulpinic Tortugan," said Lt. Steel, "it's a distant cousin of the Arburian Pelarota. Tortugans are a bit more temperamental and don't like communication tech. They're capable of sonic screams and can squirt foul-smelling chemicals. We're trying to use it to bring the Pelarotas after they went extinct." "You know," said Ben, "I do have some Pelarota DNA on this watch." Steel rubbed his chin and said, "Perhaps, but I'd best not tamper with it."

Lilo, Stitch, and Kala had gotten bored and walked over to another exhibit. The window was too dirty to look through and the sign near the door said VENUS… FLYTRAP. "Venus Flytrap?" said Stitch, "that's no alien." "I'm not sure Stitch," said Lilo, "Venus Flytraps are pretty creepy looking." "Ha! They're harmless Earth plants. And I'll prove it." Stitch walked to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. After the door closed, Kala looked at the plate and said, "This is really filthy. Guess they don't pay maintenance well." She rubbed the plate to remove the grime. When she was done, more letters had been revealed, making the sign say VENUSIAN FLYTRAP. "Oh, it is an alien," said Lilo, "we should tell Stitch that." Kala wiped some dirt away from the window and said, "I think he already knows."

Fortunately, Lt. Steel had noticed and pushed a button near the door. There was the sound of electricity zapping and a few moments after that, Stitch opened the door, fur standing on end from the charge and charred vines wrapped around him. "You'll want to stay away from that," said Steel, "those things are hardly ever full. We've just been lucky enough to make sure it has never tasted human blood." "Why are you keeping it here then?" asked Gwen. "We're trying to figure out how it can influence others so we'll be prepared to face its kind in future battles. But just remember, whatever they promise you, don't feed the plants."

Then they came to another exhibit. The alien inside was humanoid in shape, only about 8 feet tall and bone white. The only part that wasn't with was its mask-like face and red eyes. "What is that thing?" asked Draco. "We don't really know ourselves," said Lt. Steel, "we're not even sure it's an alien. It can't speak English, so we call it the Elemental." "Why do you call it that?" asked Matt. "I'll show you," said Steel and he pushed a button next to the door. A fire extinguisher came out of the ceiling of the secluded room and sprayed a forceful blast of water at the Elemental. The Elemental didn't wince, but its body became a watery blue. It turned and started hammering at the window with arms that seemed to be made out of liquid. "Whatever attack that hits it, its body takes on the characteristics of that attack. It returns to its 'normal' form after a while, but it is still dangerous. We're just keeping it until we know what it is, and then we're sending it to the Null Void."

"So…where are the experiment clones?" asked Matt as Lt. Steel led the way deeper into the building till a large vault door came into view with 'Maximum Security' on it in very big letters. "Oh…big door," said Matt, walking forward only to have two MG turrets fold from the ceiling and aim at him. "Ooookay…nice guns," said Matt, backing up. Lt. Steel walked by him and tapped in a code on a keypad by the door and the door slid open slowly along with a klaxon wailing. Inside were several booths similar to the ones holding the Venusian Flytrap, the Elemental and the Tortugan. There were a few differences. The scientists milling around used cameras to look at the experiments, meaning no windows for the booths. There were also lots more autoguns aiming at each booth door as well as armed guards.

"Very…thorough," said Matt looking around. Meanwhile, Draco, Chip, and Morph were looking at a table in an empty room. "I wonder what they do in there?" asked Draco. "Probably dissect aliens," said Morph. "They don't do that," said Chip, "anymore that is." "Hey Morph," said Draco, "I dare you to sit on that table." "Nope." Said Morph "How about for a king-sized frosty?" replied Draco, smirking.

"Ooh, I hate it when you use my sweet tooth against me," said Morph as he went inside. When Morph sat on the bench, Chip found some controls for the room. "What's this D stand for?" he muttered as he pressed it. Suddenly an automated voice said, "Commencing dissection process." Suddenly all sorts of mechanical arms with surgical tools at the end started approaching Morph. "Before you abort that," said Draco, "I want to see how much stuff they can pull out of Morph first." "That might take a while," said Chip, "he's practically a bottomless pit."

Matt and Steel walked up to one of the booth monitors. Visible on the monitor was what looked like Richter till it turned round showing its red eyes. "Yeah…that's one of the clones I'm chasing…" Matt flicked through the various feeds, showing the clones of Yin, Yang and Phoon in succession. After some thought, Matt looked at Lt. Steel and said, "You should probably dehydrate these sooner rather then later." Steel nodded and seemed about to reply when his radio beeped, "Sir? We got a problem…"

Outside the military base, NegaMorph and Silvia were looking at the electrified fence surround the place. "You sure they're in there?" asked Silvia. "Yes, I can sense them," said NegaMorph, his tail lashing and twirling with anticipation. "Can't you go inside yourself?" asked Silvia. "The fence is electrified so if I try to squeeze through, I'll be zapped while I'm in a vulnerable state. Not to mention the security they have against aerial and subterranean attacks." "Okay then," said Silvia taking off her gloves, "have it your way." She approached the fence and without any hesitation, grabbed the wires with both hands. Instead of being electrocuted, the electricity was absorbed into her hands. She kept draining energy until the fence shut off, along with everything else in the facility.

Morph's reaction to the situation was pretty good example of what everyone thought: "Hey! Who turned off the lights?" "Don't worry Stitch," said Lilo, "I'm here." "That's my leg," said Ben. "Oops." "You'd think I'd have gotten that night-vision feature by now," said Chip. Suddenly there was the sound of breaking glass and otherworldly cries. "That doesn't sound good," said Max. Suddenly there was a contained explosion and Chris said, "Neither does that." When the secondary generator turned on, the only aliens that were there was in Ben's wrist or on someone's shoulders. "Draco," said Matt, "get off my head." "Sorry," said Draco and the six aliens came off. Morph was hiding in the Omnitrix. All the booths that held the aliens were both smashed to pieces and vacant.

One of the scientists ran up to Lt. Steel and handed him a clipboard. "Sir," he said, "all of the Level-3 aliens have escaped during the blackout and are loose on the facility." "What caused a blackout?" asked Steel. "Apparently, the electricity has been drained straight out of the electric fence, which was then ripped open." "So someone or something is also here," said Max, "not to mention those aliens on the loose."

"Yes," said Steel, "and I'm afraid I have no choice but to ask for your help in catching these things again. If they get into town, they could cause incalculable damage to limb and property." "I know just the hero for the job," said Ben and quickly twisted the Omnitrix's dial and slammed it down. With a flash of green light, Ben was replaced by a small black and white alien. "Why go Ditto?" asked Gwen as Ditto split into three. "As long as Morph's in the Omnitrix, we can turn into other aliens separately," explained the first Ditto.

--------------------

Matt, Chris, and one of the Ben Ditto's had gone after what Matt was sure was the trail of Viral Yin and Yang. The HUGE clue was the melted security turrets and soaked and rather shell-shocked guards. Finally the group turned a corner and spotted the two clones…and they weren't alone. The hunched form of the Tortugan was advancing on the cowering clones, though judging from the surrounding damage in the corridor they'd put up a good fight.

"Hey ugly…pick on someone your own size!" yelled Matt. "Like us you mean?" muttered Chris. Matt nodded, replying "Yeah, like us…smeg." The Tortugan roared and charged the newcomers, shrugging off the plasma rounds from Chris and Matt's blasters and several punches from the Ditto clone who went into Fourarms form. Matt barely avoided a swipe from the Tortugan that if it connected would have knocked his head off and drew his ion staff, landing a swipe that did nothing.

"What's this guy made of? Adamantine?" he said before the Tortugan let out an ear-splitting screech that tossed him, Chris and Ben off their feet. "…Ouch," said Chris, shaking his head to clear the ringing before saying, "How do you kill that thing? Didn't Steel and his eggheads have a countermeasure?"

The trio scattered as the Tortugan attacked again, ripping a piece of iron plating and throwing it at them, following up with another sonic attack that tore the corridor apart. Matt turned on his comm to get some help when the creature screeched and began running at him, much to Matt's shock. Fourarms had just enough time to use the Big Smack to blow the Tortugan away. The Tortugan growled and curled up into a ball. It then rolled straight into Fourarms and bounced out through a wall.

"Why'd it charge you like that?" asked Fourarms. "I don't know," said Matt, "all I did was turn on my communicator." "Didn't Steel say that Tortugans hate communication tech?" said Chris. "Yeah, he did," said Matt, "which means it'll head for the place where there're more communicators. But first we need to bag those two Virus Clones." "What Viral Clones?" said Fourarms. Matt looked and saw that Viral Yin and Yang had disappeared. Matt swore and said, "We'll have to take care of them later then. Ben, what can you turn into to help us?" In a flash of green light, Fourarms switched to Wildmutt. He sniffed the air and then leaped out the hole the Tortugan made. Matt and Chris followed after him.

The trail led to, quite predictably, the communication base. The Tortugan was inside tearing the place apart. "So we've found it again, how do we kill it?" asked Chris. "I'm afraid we'll have to settle with just capturing it," said Matt. Matt looked thoughtful for a second and then asked Wildmutt, "You're a Vulpimancer, right?" Wildmutt nodded his head. "Then that means you and that thing are from the same planet, maybe you can reason with it." Wildmutt gave a shrug and leaped through the door. "You do know that idea of yours is equivalent to us talking to a bear, right?" said Chris. "Well maybe it could work," said Matt uncertainly.

The Tortugan noticed Wildmutt the moment it entered the communication base. Wildmutt then made several growling and barking noises which was presumably his way of talking. The Tortugan watched him until he was finished. Then it spat out a yellowish gunk that splattered all over Wildmutt. Matt's eyes watered from the stench of the chemical, a stench that smelled like rotten horseradish and a skunk wearing Axe deodorant. Wildmutt roared in confusion and disgust. He trashed around, trying to get the chemical off. Then the Tortugan let out another sonic shriek that overwhelmed Wildmutt's delicate hearing. With a flash of green light, Wildmutt turned back into Ditto. "Do you have any idea how much that hurt?" asked Ditto. "Must be its way of dealing with Vulpimancers," said Matt.

The Tortugan opened its mouth again to scream and Ditto said, "Oh no you don't," and switched to Stinkfly. Stinkfly fired sticky goo which adhered to the Tortugan's mouth. This muted it quite nicely. Matt quickly slammed the door shut and locked it. "We need something stronger to hold that thing in," said Chris. Suddenly they heard growling and they turned to see Viral Yin and Yang. Viral Yang growled and a stream of lava erupted from one of his spouts. "Move!" yelled Matt and the threesome moved out of the way. But instead of turning to hit them, the lava landed on the door Matt had locked. Viral Yin then fired water at the door to cool the lava. The two of them continued this until the door was covered in a thick layer of freshly made igneous rock. Matt grabbed one of his guns and said, "Thanks for the help, but you're still evil, so I'm still catching you." He fired it at the two Virus Clones and turned into pods. "What kind of gun was that?" asked Stinkfly. "Dehydration cannon," answered Matt, "hope the others aren't having so much trouble."

**-------------------**

Meanwhile, Lilo, Stitch, Draco, Chip, and one of the Ditto clones were tracking another alien. They haven't seen it yet, but by the looks of the mud and dirt on the ground, it looked like the Venusian Flytrap. "Just be careful guys," said Chip, "Venusian Flytraps are very treacherous." "Where do you think its going?" asked Ditto. "If I know hungry aliens," said Lilo, "my guess is that'll it'll head for the place with the most food." Suddenly there was a loud smashing noise and everyone said, "Cafeteria," and ran in the direction of the sound.

When they got there, they found that the cafeteria was a mess. Tables and chairs were strewn everywhere, in varying degrees of damage. Silverware and dishware were lying helter-skelter on the floor. The Flytrap itself was in the middle of the room. It was big, green, and really mean-looking. It had a pod for a head that was split in half by a fang-filled mouth. It had several vines growing from the body, which was supported on purple tuber-like roots. The pod looked down at them and grinned. "Well, well," it said, "if it isn't five helpings of dessert." "It can talk?" said the group. "You bet your butt I can talk," said the Flytrap, "I'm a mean green mother from outer space and I'm the baddest plant around." "We'll see about that," said Ditto and he switched to Wildvine. The Flytrap frowned and said, "Looks like suppertime's gonna be shorter than I expected. I ain't no vegetarian." "Then chew on this," said Chip and he fired a blast of viral energy. The Flytrap barely flinched from the attack. "You do not want to get me fighting mad," said the Flytrap and it flung out several vines. The experiments dodged and returned fire. Several of the attacks bounced off the tough vegetation, the only thing that stuck was Draco's fire and ice attacks. Several leaves on the plant was either burned or frozen, but it regrew them quickly. Then Wildvine threw several seed-bombs at the Flytrap. The bombs did do some damage, but not enough. "That's it," cried the carnivorous plant, "now you're gonna get it!" It wrapped its vines around the group. To their surprise, the plant was too tough to break free from. The Flytrap lifted them up to its mouth and swallowed them whole.

The five of them found themselves in the Venusian Flytrap's stomach, which was surprisingly large. And since it had eaten recently, there were small mounds for them to sit on to avoid the digestive acid. "Well that didn't work out the way we hoped," said Lilo. "How do we beat it?" asked Stitch, "that thing seems pretty impenetrable." "Not when I used flames and ice," said Draco. "I think it'll take a bigger temperature change to work," said Chip. "I think I can make that work," said Wildvine, "but first we gotta get out of here." Morph hopped out of the Omnitrix and said, "Don't worry. I make everyone sick eventually." "I don't think you can annoy him in here, Morph," said Wildvine. "Actually, he wasn't kidding," said Chip, "when Morph gets eaten, he creates a secretion that causes whatever stomach he's in to become upset." "Upset how?" Suddenly the pustule on Morph's head popped and started dripping a disgusting gunk into the acid. Then the whole stomach gave a lurch. "Uh-oh," said Stitch.

Outside, the Venusian Flytrap was starting to feel a little green, and not in the good way. "Ooh, I think something's not mixing right," it groaned. Suddenly its stomach started lurching and was now having a pushing contest with its gag reflex, and the gag reflex is losing. Then from out of its mouth came the contents of its recent meal, including our heroes who were covered in unmentionably foul stuff. "Okay," said Draco, "this has got to be the most disgusting experience of my life." "Most disgusting experience _so far_," corrected Morph. The Flytrap had now regained his composure and was bristling with anger. "I've had it with you punks," it growled. As Morph hopped back into the Omnitrix, Wildvine said, "So am I." Then he turned into Heatblast and said, "Time to turn you into firewood," before throwing a flamethrower blast at the monster plant. The Venusian Flytrap only had enough time to say, "Oh son of a-," before it was reduced to ashes. "Didn't Lieutenant Steel wanted the Flytrap back alive?" asked Lilo. "I'm sure he won't miss it," said Heatblast, "I wonder how the other me's are getting on?"

**-------------------**

On another part of the base, Gwen, Grandpa Max, and the original Ditto clone were looking for the Elemental. "We have to be careful with this thing," said Max, "if Steel is right, it can take the properties of whatever it touches." "Not even Ben can keep up with that," said Gwen. "We'll see about that," said Ditto, "but just in case, do you have any spells we could use?" "A couple, but those might not be enough. I'm still just a beginner." Max put his hand on her shoulder and said, "If there's one thing you two had inherited me, it's your ability to adapt to the situation quickly. I'm sure you both would be okay."

Suddenly two red blurs came racing around the corner and ran right into Ditto and Gwen. The cousins were knocked onto their backs by the force. They sat up and saw Kala and 627 rubbing their heads in pain. "What's the rush?" asked Ditto. Then 627 illustrated what was probably an elaborate story about what happened, but since he can only say the word 'evil', it didn't mean a thing to the Tennysons. "Uh, what did he say?" asked Max. Morph popped his head out of the Omnitrix logo on Ditto's forehead and said, "Hyena said that the Elemental had just made a trade with NegaMorph. The Elemental handed over Viral Richter and Phoon and in return, got a sample of their elemental powers. Plus, it still has the water powers from before." "Hyena?" asked Gwen. "We call him that because he's feral, reckless, and has a laughing problem," explained Kala. "So now the elemental has power over water, wind, and earth," said Max, "that's going to be a problem." "Don't worry," said Gwen as her hand was surrounded in a blue glow, "I've got a pretty good control over those elements."

They found the Elemental at the base's landing pads for planes and helicopter. Its torso was now an earthy brown while its legs were watery blue and its arms were transparent. The Elemental immediately noticed the group's arrival and stomped on the ground with its foot. The ground that our heroes were immediately went upwards. Then the Elemental opened his hand and a gale of wind blew them off. "Whoa," said Ditto, "this guy's really tough now." "I'll handle it," said Gwen and she spoke some magic words. Sharp stones came out of the ground and struck the Elemental in the chest. Unfortunately, the Elemental just absorbed the rocks and created a tidal wave that washed everyone back. Gwen kept using different spells over earth, wind, and water, but the Elemental either absorbed the attacks, or threw them back. The others could only help by trying to physically attack the Elemental, because if they try to blast it, it would change its composition.

"I don't think I can win this," said Gwen, "its better at this than I am." "Gwen," said Max, "you've been using only the same elements that it's using. Use the one it doesn't have." "Fire?" asked Gwen, "but I've never cast a fire spell before." "Either that, or this thing rips the entire countryside apart," said Ditto. "But we don't have any fire around," said Gwen. "Sure we do," said Kala and she stuffed a plasma orb down Hyena's throat. Hyena smacked his lips and let off a flaming belch. Gwen used her telekinetic magic to grab the fire before it went out. Suddenly the Elemental sent a large bubble of water at the group. Gwen focused on the bubble and shot the flame into it. The bubble boiled and turned into vapour. Then Gwen used the vapour's power to throw the Elemental back into a wall. "I think I got it now," said Gwen.

Meanwhile, Ditto had turned into XLR8 and was running at the Elemental. The elemental converted the ground underneath XLR8 to mud. As XLR8's wheels got stuck in the mud, he groaned and said, "This is like fighting those Sludges again." "That's it!" cried Gwen, "Ben, spin around the Elemental." XLR8 shook off the mud and got behind the Elemental, which was being distracted by Kala and Hyena. "Miss me?" said XLR8 and started running around the Elemental. Eventually a small tornado formed with the Elemental in the centre of it. After a while, XLR8 had to stop to catch his breath. When the dust cleared, the Elemental was shown to be intact. However, the speed of the whirlwind caused its elements to mix together into mud. Gwen said, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire," and blasted the Elemental with a fiery inferno. Before the Elemental could change its composition, its mud body had hardened into solidified clay. This left a very unusual-looking statue in the Elemental's place. XLR8 smiled and said, "You may be good at magic, but your pottery's lousy."

Soon everyone was back at the storage room for the Level 3 aliens. The sedated Vulpinic Tortugan was being put back in its room while some members of the SACT were loading the petrified Elemental into its room. "Everything seems to be under control," said Lt. Steel, "I'm thankful for what you did with that Elemental, it'll be a lot easier to study now. Then we can get rid of it for good." "By the way," said Ben, "I'm sorry about torching your Flytrap." "Ah, that thing was eating us out of house and home anyways. Besides, we have a few sprouts from it so no real harm done. I'm sorry that we didn't get all of those Viral Clones though." Matt shrugged and said, "Two out of four isn't that bad. At least we caught some this time. And there are plenty more where those came from too."

While Ben and Gwen were looking at some more of the captive aliens, Gwen said, "So Ben, I guess this proves I have what it takes to be a master magician." "Guess so," said Ben, "but you're still my dopey cousin." "Why can't you just say I did a good job," said Gwen. "Oh no, I'm not falling for that one again," said Ben as he headed towards the bathroom. "Where do you think you're going?" said Gwen. "Where you can't follow," said Ben and he went inside the men's bathroom. Suddenly Gwen smiled and muttered some words under her breath. Then there were the sounds of toilets flushing and Ben yelling. Then Ben's voice said, "That was cruel and really unusual." Then Gwen laughed until her sides were sore.

* * *

There's another chapter. I hope this one was a lot better than the last one. Just for the record, I didn't make all of these aliens up. The Vulpinic Tortugan and the Elemental appeared in Teen Titans episodes "Stranded" and "Things Change" respectively. The Venusian Flytrap was of course a homage to Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. The next chapter will be very exciting and will have some major relevance in the continuity of the saga. Keep an eye out for it. Please review. 


	8. Ghosts of the Past

**Retrieval Saga**

**The Omnitrix Ordeal**

**Chapter 8: Ghosts of the Past**

Matt and Chris ducked behind a rock to avoid a storm of laser blasts from two empire droids. "You know…is it me or is Silvia in a worse mood then usual…she usually just comes with NegaMorph," said Chris. Matt peered over to see Silvia fighting Ben in Heatblast form and ducked as the bots took some pot shots. Visible, perched on top of a tree was what had attracted the two groups there. A purple version of Melty was perched there, dodging blasts from NegaMorph who was trying to knock him down. Kala had called him Jekyll. He had been part of the experiment crew aboard the Honolulu and had been used to 'install' prototypes of mental A.I's like V-627 into clones. Kala had also warned that Dr. Johnson had ordered a last minute upgrade the week before she had been dehydrated.

Meanwhile, Draco and Chip were trying to deal with a very tight situation. Not only had Silvia brought a small back of empire drones, she had summoned Virustoxico with them. "All this fuss over one future experiment," said Draco, "don't you think it's a bit over-reactive?" "Survive now, talk later," said Chip as he avoided some cannon fire. Fortunately, this prairie they were fighting in had several rocks to hind behind. Unfortunately, the weapons these robots packed could blast straight through solid stone. Draco crawled to the top of the rock he and Chip were hiding behind and used his plasma breath on one of the drones. Chip used the distraction to send crashing computer viruses into the drone. "That was easy," said Draco. Suddenly Virustoxico grabbed the twosome from behind. "This won't be," said Chip.

A laser shot zipped past Matt's ear finally getting his attention back to the here and now. "Stuff this," he muttered, ducking back now. "Let's get em," Matt said to Chris who grinned, pulling out his blaster. They both leaned out and fired on the droids to little effect. The two droids were prototypes designed by Johnson. They were able to absorb weapons fire to power their systems…such as their particle machine guns. A hail of energy fire caused the two to seek shelter again. "This sucks…haven't you tried to blow up their power cores?" Chris yelled over the noise.

Matt turned and glared at Chris. "Of course I have…eep." A shot had just burst through their cover between them. "Well…I think we need to work on something…FAST!" As they were running, Matt noticed Virustoxico trying to strangle Draco and Chip. With a wave of his arm, he sent several plasma-bolts up the amalgamation's exhaust pipes, causing significant damage from within. As Matt notice the other drones, he groaned and said, "This is going to be a long day."

Heatblast wasn't having any luck either. Apparently, Silvia's more used to fighting fire than lightning, even if she couldn't manipulate it. He would have switched to another alien if Morph hadn't been exhausted from the Ditto powering yesterday. Then Silvia said, "Give it up, boy. Even as a Pyronite, you're no match against me." "We'll see about that," said Heatblast and sent a flamethrower-like attack at Silvia. Silvia countered with a stream of lightning. As the two kept on the barrage, Heatblast noticed that the air was become very hot from both sides of the field. He launched into the air by propelling flames from his feet and severed his barrage from Silvia's. He then opened his hands and started sucking all the heat out of the air. As he might have guessed, Silvia's lightning got sucked up too. "Not so tough without your heat lightning, huh?" he mocked.

Suddenly a beeping from his chest drew his attention. He looked down to see the Omnitrix logo flashing red. "Oh no, not now!" he said before he turned back into Ben with a flash of red light. As soon as that happened, Silvia knocked him over and put her foot on his chest. To Ben's discomfort, Silvia was wearing high-heel boots with very pointing heels. "Not so tough without your aliens huh?" she mocked.

While all this was going on, Lilo, Stitch, and Gwen were working on saving Jekyll. "Don't worry," said Lilo, "it'll be like saving a cat that was chased up a tree by a dog." "Yeah," said Gwen, "but the 'dog' doesn't have several mouths full of mutating fangs." "Let me," said Stitch and he sneaked close to NegaMorph's back. NegaMorph was so busy trying to Jekyll that he didn't notice Stitch. Then Stitch leaped forward and clamped his teeth around NegaMorph's tail. NegaMorph gave a cry of pain and turned around to swat at Stitch.

While Stitch was keeping NegaMorph busy, Gwen levitated Lilo up to Jekyll. As Lilo approached him, Jekyll growled and showed his teeth. "Don't worry," said Lilo, "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm your friend." Jekyll stopped growling and sniffed at Lilo. "There's nothing to worry about," said Lilo as she petted Jekyll on the head. The experiment tensed up for a second, but then relaxed.

Meanwhile, Matt and Chris's retreat had tem run into Silvia who was knocked flying. "Oh…hey Chloe," said Matt and ducked in time to avoid a lightning bolt. "MY NAME IS SILVIA, YOU SMEGBRAINED HUMAN!" she yelled firing another bolt. Chris sniggered, helping Ben up before they carried on running towards the tree where the others were meeting up. "I think you struck a nerve," he said as the three reached the tree.

Matt took a long look as the two experimental droids, one very angry-looking Silvia and a dented and even more furious (if that was possible) Virustoxico. "Ah nuts," he muttered. Jekyll had also been watching. He took a breath and black energy began to collect in his mouth. Matt turned in time to see Jekyll spit a black plasma orb that sailed over the villains' heads.

"Great. He missed…er…Matt?" said Chris, turning to see Matt running for the cover of a ditch a few yards away. "Er…run?" he suggested before the group ran after Matt and dived in behind him. "What is your prob…?" panted Chris before there was a deafening KABOOOOM!

The gang peered out to see a black wall of crackling energy engulf the approaching imperials, leaving the drones as pools of metal and Silvia and co. groaning and slightly singed. Matt looked at Jekyll who was looking pleased with himself. "Void plasma… smegging hell." Chris poked him. "Er…I vote we leave before the bad guys come round and kick out butts," he said pointing out the dazed imperial generals who had begun to stir. Matt looked at them, "Good point. Time to leave…" he looked at Jekyll, "We got what we needed."

**-----------------------------**

Back at the Rustbucket, the gang was recovering from the fight. Ben was putting some ointment on the bruises on his chest. "Why do girls have to wear high-heels?" he moaned. "Just be glad those weren't stilettos," said Gwen. Draco was suffering a bit more. Virustoxico's strangling had damaged his windpipe. He could still breathe, but his breath powers were out of commission. "I still don't see what's so uber-important about this guy," he wheezed, "aside that he can spit sub-atomic explosions." "That's just his defence system," said Kala, "his primary function is that he can activate secondary personalities." "THAT'S WHY WE SAVED HIM!?" yelled Draco before starting a coughing fit from the strain. "Draco's right," said Chris, "it doesn't seem important enough that Silvia summoned battle drones and that smog factory." "Jekyll's power would have allowed the Empire to keep the EXP AI's in total control of whoever they're in," explained Kala.

"Or the other way around," said Matt thoughtfully. "What are you thinking?" asked Chris. "Silvia has an AI too. But since that's always in control, that makes the original personality the secondary one. And that's not just any personality, that's Chloe." "Who?" asked Ben. "His long-lost sister who's been brainwashed by the Empire," explained Lilo. "So what you're saying is…" said Max. "We could use Jekyll to bring Chloe back," said Matt. He expected everyone to agree with him, but all he got was odd looks. "What? It's a good idea." "Well it certainly has good intentions," said Chip, "but I'm not sure it's very smart." "You'd know a lot about smartness, wouldn't you," snapped Matt. "It's not just Chip," said Lilo, "I'm not sure we should do that either. Remember the last time we tried to use a future experiment against the Empire?"

"How was I supposed to know that its goo would have a chemical reaction?" asked Matt. "The point is that those experiments are too hazardous to be used as weapons. Present company excluded Kala. You'd make an even bigger mess." "Ah, what would you guys know?" cried Matt and he stomped off. When Matt was gone, Max said to Chip, "So, that robot-hydra thing is you and Draco's archenemy?" "Indeed," said Chip, "we have a long history together. Too long, don't ask about it."

That night, Matt woke up with a start and looked around at his slumbering friends before jumping out of bed, still in his combat gear. "Sorry guys…" he muttered, picking up the sleeping Jekyll and heading for the door. He'd just closed the door when he heard someone behind him say "Going somewhere?" causing Matt to jump about a foot in the air. Jekyll, rudely awoken, shot another void blast, forcing Matt to cover his mouth. His eyes crossed as his hand was fried. He looked back to see Ben standing there. "Gurk…I mean…I was going for a walk," he said with his best attempt at innocence (something that's difficult to achieve while smoke is curling from your hand) before saying, "And what are you up to?" Ben shrugged, "Thought you could use some help getting your sister back."

Matt smiled, "The more, the merrier…but first…we need one more helping hand." On cue, a sleepwalking Morph walked past, mumbling something about demon cheese sandwiches. Matt knelt down beside Morph and then yelled in his ear, "MORPH! LITTLE JIMMY IS TRAPPED IN THE OMNITRIX! GO SAVE HIM!" Morph partially awoke with a start and said half-sleepily, "I'll save you, Jimmy!" and dove into the Omnitrix. A few seconds later, Morph's voice said, "That is so not cool, man."

**Silvia's personal ship**

**Unidentified location**

Matt, being carried by Ben in Stinkfly form landed softly just out of sight of the ship and Ben morphed back to human form. "So…what's your plan?" he asked. Matt put down Jekyll who had fallen asleep again. "Well, first we need to get in. I thought Ghostfreak could help out there," he said. He drew a very bad sketch in the dirt and continued, "Then we need to get to Silvia's room and have Jekyll do his stuff…right Jekyll?" He said the last part in Tantalog to the experiment who turned over mumbling. Matt sighed, "If he stays awake long enough…guess shooting void plasma takes it out of a dude."

He turned around to see nothing there. "Er…Ben?" he said looking around before turning back to see Ben in Ghostfreak form. "GAH!! Oh, very funny," said Matt. Matt felt foolish for letting himself get scared like that, but Ghostfreak was pretty creepy looking. The only difference between him and the Ectonurites that attacked the Shadow Hawk was that his eye was green and he had the Omnitrix logo inside one of his grooves. Matt looked at the ship, surrounded by its shielding. "Please just open the door…" he said.

Matt and Jekyll watched Ben phase into the ship and after a few minutes strolled over to the door. A sign on it read 'Trespassers will be vaporised' but in smaller writing said 'Deliveries at rear.' Matt and Jekyll looked at each other at this part. "Ok…that's just weird." The door's lock suddenly sparked and the door opened to reveal Ghostfreak. "Nice one, Ben," said Matt walking in with Jekyll. "Next stop…Silvia's room," Matt said leading the way.

After a bit, they came to Silvia's room. A large sign had been welded in place saying 'Keep out or die! (this goes double for you, Virustoxico.)' Ben read the sign, "So…do we knock?" Matt pulled out his blaster, "Nah…I'm bored and knocking's for people who aren't hurrying." He then proceeded to vaporise the door.

Meanwhile, it was NegaMorph's turn to watch the surveillance cameras. It got rather boring. The only way someone could break in was going through the walls. The cameras had a view on every room, even Silvia's. Another person would use it spy on Silvia. NegaMorph would have never given it a thought. He'd even turn away when she was changing clothes. Several others called him 'Silvia's pet blob' for this. This was hardly the case. NegaMorph sucked up to no one, except Hamsterviel, but just barely. This was genuine loyalty. As NegaMorph watched the monitors, he thought about how he and Silvia got that close bond.

_Flashback:_ A couple of weeks ago, NegaMorph was doing some very annoying paperwork for the Empire. "Why do I have to do this tripe?" he muttered. Suddenly the door to the room opened and Silvia walked in. "Hello Silvia," said NegaMorph not looking up. "Hello NegaMorph," said Silvia, "I have something for you." "If it's more paperwork, put somewhere else till I'm finished with this." "No, it's really quite different. Here." She put a box wrapped up with paper and a ribbon on the desk near NegaMorph. NegaMorph eyed it curiously and asked, "What is it?" "It's a present," said Silvia, "don't you remember what day it is? It's the anniversary of when you first came into being." "So, it's my birthday?" said NegaMorph picking up the present, "why are you doing this?" Silvia shrugged and said, "I don't know, just some small stupid part of me that likes doing kind things for friends. Hope you like it." Then Silvia walked out the door.

NegaMorph never forgot that. No one had ever given him a gift before. She had even remembered that it was his birthday, sort of. And it was no small time gift either. It was a pocket-watch made of pure adamantanium. The outside front was engraved with an N-shaped mouth like the one on his front. And the lids had small pointed edges that resembled teeth. And not only did it tell time, it was built with a radar device, a compass, and a slot for holding a picture. NegaMorph had slipped in a picture of him and Silvia when they were on that vacation on Jamakamo. He always kept the watch inside his coat.

Suddenly an explosion drew NegaMorph's attention to the monitors again. Outside the door to Silvia's room, Matt was trying to blast it down. Besides him were that future experiment and an Ectonurite NegaMorph didn't recognize until he saw the logo it its chest. "Lynch," growled NegaMorph and entered into his shadow and zoomed out of the surveillance room.

Silvia must have been awake cause she was still in combat uniform, laser out when her door atomized and Ben, Jekyll, and Matt came in. "Hi, this is your 2am alarm call," said Matt, dodging a lightning blast before firing some stun rounds which Silvia blocked. "Can't you people leave me along?" Silvia snarled, dodging a shot from Ben before trying to return the favour. Jekyll, however, had taken position on the wardrobe to zap Silvia when the time came. He suddenly shuddered as something phased through the wardrobe below him and materialized in front of Matt in a storm of darkness.

"Oh…hey there, Nega-Dufus. Join the party," said Matt cheekily before dodging two nega shots that dissolved part of the bed behind Mat. "GET OUT, HUMAN!" shouted the furious NegaMorph, trying to slash Mat with his mouth-hand. "Obviously not a morning person," said Matt.

While Matt was trying to survive NegaMorph's onslaught, Ben and Silvia were dishing it out too. "Nice form," said Silvia sarcastically, "where'd you get it? At a costume store?" "This thing can do a lot more than be scary," said Ben and he stuck his intangible hand through Silvia's head. Silvia swooned for a bit but then tried punching Ben, but it passed through Ghostfreak's body. Then he grabbed her fist in his hand. What he didn't expect was an electric shock that threw him through the wall. Then Silvia turned around and pointed at Matt saying, "Time to end this once and for all." Suddenly Ben rematerialized behind Silvia and wrapped his tentacles around her. As she struggled to get free, he cried, "Jekyll, now!"

Matt and NegaMorph both turned as Ben called. "BEN, JEKYLL…NOT YE…!" Matt called but it was too late as Jekyll fired a dazzling white blast from his mouth that blinded both and hit Ben and Silvia.

When Matt's vision cleared, he saw Ben and Silvia out cold on the floor, or in Ben's case, slightly above the floor. The NEXT thing he felt was NegaMorph's hands closing around his windpipe. "I'll kill you if she's hurt," he snarled and stopped as he saw Silvia stir and get up dizzily. "We got them, Silvia…We got Lynch and the Tennyson kid at last…" he looked up to see Jekyll, who tried to hide. "And they even brought that experiment from earlier…Silvia?" he added the last bit curiously as 'Silvia' was now pointing a gun at him. "Put my brother down, blob boy," said Chloe coldly.

NegaMorph dropped Matt, who had turned blue by now, more or less from shock. Matt managed to get some control to send NegaMorph out the door and down the corridor at high speed, finally into a trash chute. "Chloe?" he said coughing but voice full of hope.

"Of course it's me, Matt…who else could it be…?" Chloe stopped as she saw her face in the mirror. "…and you have some explaining to do…" The alarms began to ring, bathing the room in red light. "Later. Help me with Ben," said Matt, running over to Ben who had begun to stir. "Come on Ben," said Matt, "we've got to go." Suddenly 'Ben' lifted his head, revealing that his eye had changed from green to purple. "Ben's not here," hissed Ghostfreak and he whacked Matt to the other side of the room. Chloe fired at Ghostfreak, but the shots went right through him.

"Let's go," she called, picking up Matt and leading the way, stopping to grab Jekyll on the way. Several droids burst in on Ghostfreak however, lead by Virustoxico. "Don' even move, Tennyson," said the droid captain before four long blue claws decapitated him. The other droids opened fire, but Ghostfreak went intangible. He kept slicing the robots to pieces with his claws. Then he possessed one with extra firepower in its weapons and blasted the other robots. Then the robot shot itself in the head and Ghostfreak came out. The Ectonurite looked at Virustoxico and said, "Well, I'd like to stay and chat, but I've got things to do, revenge to seek, planets to conquer. Maybe we can meet up again sometime." Laughing insanely, Ghostfreak floated through the ceiling. "_**And people call us a whack-job,**_" said Virustoxico.

---------------------------

Matt and Chloe had made it outside when an explosion got their attention. A plume of smoke floated from the top of the ship and Ghostfreak could be seen floating away, laughing insanely. "The guys'll flame grill us…" Matt said gloomily as Jekyll nodded sadly. "Who are these 'guys'?" asked Chloe suspiciously and added, "and you haven't explained the fur yet." Matt put his arm around his sister's shoulder, "Prepare yourself for a surprise…remember the cartoons 'Lilo & Stitch' and 'Ben 10'?"

---------------------------------

Not long after that, Matt, Chloe, and Jekyll had returned to the Rustbucket. It took them a while since they couldn't fly. By that time, everyone was up and looking for them. When they saw them coming, they had thought Silvia had captured Matt and Jekyll. The experiments went into attack position and got ready to fight. They stopped when 'Silvia' said, "Wow, what interesting creatures." The experiments gave each other confused looks and noticed that 'Silvia' didn't have any kind of harsh expression on her face, but one of bedazzlement, confusion, and surprise. It only took a glance at Jekyll for Chip to say, "Matt, did you do what I've think you've done?"

"If you mean use Jekyll here to free Chloe, than yes," said Matt rather proudly. "So Jekyll actually did what he was supposed to do with no side-effects," said Kala. "Nope," said Matt, "by the way, this is my sister Chloe. Chloe, these are my friends and team mates. The little guys are Stitch, Hyena, Draco, Chip, and Kala. That little girl is Lilo. That other little girl is Gwen. That's her grandfather Max. And this is my best friend, Chris." "A pleasure to meet your acquaintance," said Chris, kissing the back of Chloe's hand, which promptly earned him a slap.

"So," said Max, "where's Ben and Morph?" Matt rubbed the back of his head and said, "Yeah, that's where we entered a grey area." "What happened?" demanded Gwen. "Well, we needed to get past the ship's shielding so I had Ben use Ghostfreak." "GHOSTFREAK!" cried Gwen, Max, Lilo, Stitch, Draco, and Chip. "Please don't tell me that Jekyll affected him too," said Lilo. "Well, his eye turned purple and he started attacking us, if that's what you mean." "Way to go, Matt!" said Draco angrily, "do you have any idea what you've unleashed?" "I know he's an Ectonurite, but he couldn't be that bad," said Matt. "He tried to cover the Earth in darkness with a corrodium beam and tried to possess Ben on a number of occasions," said Max. "You still haven't told us where Morph is," said Gwen, "unless he's…" "Yep, he's stuck in the Omnitrix," said Matt. "Oh, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, now he'll either stay in Ectonurite form all the time, or he'll use the other forms." "I guess it's too late to say 'I'm sorry'?" said Matt. The others gave a 'humph', and walked away. Kala was about to say something to Matt, but Stitch grabbed her wrist and pulled her away.

---------------------------

Ghostfreak floated through the air, laughing gently to himself. "Free…I'm finally free," he said to himself, "Now, what to do first…" '_I won't let you get away with this_' said the echoing voice of Ben. "Tennyson? Where are you?" said Ghostfreak spinning around to try and spot his hated enemy. '_I won't let you hurt my friends. They'll fix this and stop you,_' said Ben's voice again. Suddenly Ghostfreak realized where Ben's voice was coming from; inside his head. "I might have known," said the Ectonurite, "Our reversed positions have put you in the same position that I was." "_That's right. But unlike me, you'll never get the Omnitrix to work for you._" Ghostfreak was about to answer when the sun peaked over the horizon, much to Ghostfreak's horror. He flailed in pain as the sunlight began to burn him, hitting the Omnitrix symbol with the back of his hand.

A second skin generated around Ghostfreak's body and the burning ceased, the suns rays harmlessly illuminating him. Ghostfreak looked around and floated to a nearby pond. His reflection revealed that he was back in his original Omnitrix form, with the second skin that served as both a protective shield and a full-body manacle. "What? This is impossible…unless…I wonder," he said, before laughing evilly

Meanwhile, Matt and Kala were sitting at the picnic table by the RV. Matt sighed and said, "I should feel good about having Chloe back, but I'm not. We've lost Ben and Morph, everyone's mad at me for using Jekyll, and I think Chris is hitting on Chloe. "How can you tell Chris is hitting on Chloe?" asked Kala. Suddenly the RV's door was flung open and Chris came sailing out. "The way she's hitting him," answered Matt. As Chris got up, Kala said, "You know that this will only last for a couple of hours, right?" "Yeah, but most of my relationships last that long too." "You do know that getting together with Chloe will make that nightmare you had in New York partially come true." Chris shrugged and said, "Well, maybe we were meant to be," and he walked off.

"What do you mean about those couple of hours?" asked Matt. "Jekyll's affect on secondary personality wears off in eight hours. Unless, that is, something is done to make it permanent. Aren't you mad about Chris pursuing your sister?" "Nah," said Matt, "Chloe's a hard rock to break and I'd only get mad if someone was using force or being sleazy." "Define 'sleazy'," said Kala. "Good point, but if Chris found someway of keeping Chloe around permanently, I'd give my full blessings or whatever."

Kala looked thoughtful for a second but then said, "What if Ghostfreak's trying to figure out the same thing?" "How good of a chance would he really have?" asked Matt. "Hypothetically speaking, if Ghostfreak remained in his form past Jekyll's time limit, the Omnitrix might register him as the dominant form and supplant Ben forever. But it's only a theory." "So we have to remove Morph from the Omnitrix before time runs up," said Matt. Then he thought carefully and said, "If I were Ghostfreak in the position he's in now, what would I want to do short of world conquest?" "Probably get revenge on the other Tennysons," said Kala, "but since they know his weaknesses, he'd want to use the body of someone who's powerful, but they haven't fought with before. But who?" After a moment's thought, they came up with the answer, "Virustoxico!"

**Silvia's personal ship**

**Unidentified location**

Meanwhile, back at Silvia's ship, things were not going well…

"_**We should be in command now that Silvia has betrayed us…not her pet mutant,"**_ Virustoxico said to Johnson over the comm. Johnson sighed, "Look…it is not betrayal, as I told the emperor. Jekyll is only capable of temporarily disabling the 'Silvia' personality. She will be back in barely 2 hours…The emperor however HAS placed you in command till that time...hey…" The 'Hey' was as Virustoxico cut the communication gleefully. _**"Finally, we can get some things done around here…starting with preparing to conquer this mudball,"**_ they muttered.

A few minutes later, NegaMorph stomped into the command bridge, his largest eye glowing a deep red with anger. He was still furious over Silvia's kidnap and Virustoxico's attitude was not helping. A drone walked by jerkily, bumping him. NegaMorph almost vented his anger on the droid but checked himself. That's when he got a split second glimpse of the droid's head. Its eye scanner seemed to be purple. He turned to get a look but the bot had jerked off into the command deck. "Stupid junk," he muttered and walked into the command deck after it.

Virustoxico was in the process of talking as Negamorph came in. "_**Today is the start of a glorious campaign,**_" proclaimed Virustoxico, "_**Now that we're in charge of this unit, we can begin our plan to take over Earth. We shall ravage anything or anyone that would dare challenge our power. Especially those annoying genetic experiments. However, we might spare 7-1-7, as without his help, we would be the leader of this invasion force.**_" Suddenly one of the robot lieutenants raised a hand and asked, "What about the Tennyson boy. Experiment 717 affected him while he was in Ectonurite form. Couldn't he pose as a threat?" Virustoxico waved their arm in a nonchalant matter and said, "_**A minor detail. Not even the Omnitrix will save this planet for what we have in store.**_"

NegaMorph managed to get his attention span back long enough to see one of the bots aiming his mag-blaster at Virustoxico. 'I know the feeling' he thought before he suddenly jerked up, realising what he was seeing. The bot fired several pulses into the shocked Virustoxico who staggered back. The bot was ripped apart as NegaMorph and the other droids and command staff shot it to pieces. Ghostfreak emerged from the wreckage, laughing evilly before shooting into the still stunned Virustoxico. Virustoxico shuddered for a second before their eyes turned a light purple and Ghostfreak's voice came from him. "Now for revenge…" he said, before blasting the side of the ship out.

NegaMorph and an ensign looked out the hole as Ghostfreak/Virustoxico flew into the distance. "Are we gonna get blamed for this?" asked the ensign. "Not if I can help it," said NegaMorph and he expanded the spines on his back into wings and took off after the possessed Virustoxico.

---------------------------

Now everyone from the Rustbucket was trying to find Ghostfreak. They decided to check first in the prairie they were fighting in yesterday. "We've been looking for hours," said Gwen, "we haven't seen a trace of Ghostfreak. How do we know if he'll overshadow that computer-hydra?" "Well," said Chip, "in my experience, if Ghostfreak had taken over Virustoxico, he'll try to catch us by surprise from above with a blast that will scatter us in all directions." Suddenly a blast came down from above and caused and an explosion that scattered the posse. "Good call," said Stitch.

Then a cackling Virustoxico hovered down. The only difference was that the multiple eyes were the same shade of purple as Ghostfreak. "So good to see you again, Maxwell and Gwendolyn," said Virustoxico with Ghostfreak's voice, "I believe we had business we didn't finish on that space shuttle. I can't remember what happened after my DNA was added to the Omnitrix, but I believe you two were responsible for my second demise. Now, I'm going to return the favour." "Back off, Space Ghost!" yelled Matt, "I unintentionally brought you into this world, and I'm bringing you out of it." Ghostfreak lazily pointed a hand at Matt and caused a bolt of purple viral energy to slam Matt into a rock. As Matt's head swam he said, "You know, I'm really starting to hate the colour purple." "What's that supposed to mean?" asked Chloe.

"I suppose you think possessing Virustoxico was a grand idea," said Chip. "I love to burst your bubble," said Draco, "because that was a grand mistake." Chip jumped onto Virustoxico's body and shoved his hands through Virustocron's face. He then sent out a surge of viral energy that heavily incapacitated Virustoxico's body. Then Draco grabbed the possessed amalgamation by the tail and started spinning him around, smashing him into several boulders as he did so. Then Draco let go and Ghostfreak flew into a large boulder, knocking out Virustoxico.

Then Ghostfreak, still wrapped in his second skin, emerged from Virustoxico's body and said, "You may be able to defeat that machine, but can you defeat yourselves?" He dove to possess Draco's body, but he held him back with his psychic horns. Ghostfreak combated with his own psychic powers. "Come on Draco," said Lilo, "if we don't get Morph out of the Omnitrix, Ghostfreak will be on top for good."

Little did they know that NegaMorph had followed Ghostfreak/Virustoxico to here. He watched the battle and heard what Lilo said. He considered just waiting it out for Ben's mind to become completely overthrown by the Ectonurite and dealing with him then. On the other hand, he'll probably never see Morph again, which by extension will mean never getting the chance to kill him. And perhaps, just maybe, intervening will bring back Silvia. NegaMorph leaped out from his hiding place behind a boulder and latched onto Ghostfreak. The Ectonurite cried out with surprise and anger, "Whose side are you on?" "Mine," growled NegaMorph and he charged up his left hand with negative molecular energy and plunged it into the Omnitrix logo. There was a shower of red and green sparks and NegaMorph slowly pulled his hand out. As NegaMorph was doing so, Ghostfreak yelled for everyone to hear, "You may have won this battle, but you have not seen the last of me! I'll still be in here and I will find a way to get back out! You can bet your life on that!"

Then NegaMorph pulled Morph out of the Omnitrix logo, which caused it to deactivate. In a flash of red light, Ben was back in human form. NegaMorph tossed aside Morph like a piece of garbage. "Don't think I saved your life for nothing," he said to Morph, "I just found that Ectonurite as obnoxious as you did. And because you've had a torturous time, I'm letting you go. But don't expect it every time. Besides, I've got bigger fish to grill." Matt had gotten up by then and said, "Look Chloe, Ben's back to normal. Isn't that fantast-" Matt was interrupted by 'Chloe' delivering a punch to his face. As Matt's vision cleared up, he heard Silvia's voice saying, "So, you think it's funny to use Jekyll on me to have a little family reunion, huh?" As Matt looked up to see Silvia and NegaMorph glaring down at him, he was quite aware of the imminent pain that was coming.

The others watch Matt get pummelled with the attitude of interested spectators. "Shouldn't we help him?" asked Gwen. "No," said Chris, "this is one of those lessons he has to learn the hard way." Ben had looked at the Omnitrix and said, "That's interesting." "What?" asked Max. "Ghostfreak has his original icon on the watch. Maybe it's because he deactivated in covered form." "That is interesting," said Draco. By then Silvia and NegaMorph had finished and started to leave. As NegaMorph picked up the unconscious Virustoxico, Silvia said, "Try that again and I'll beat you to a pulp." "That's not a pulp?" said Chris.

Then Kala went over to tend to Matt. "I'm not sure what hurts worse, my pride or my side." As Kala put her hand on Matt's side, he winced and said, "Definitely my side." "Well," said Kala, "I'm not sure this was the best way to get your sister back, but you'll get her back someday. I'm sure of it. Besides, you can use Jekyll again to…" Suddenly Kala looked around and said, "Hey, where'd Jekyll go?"

Meanwhile on Silvia's ship, Virustoxico was recuperating from the beating his body had taken under Ghostfreak's influence. "_**That Tennyson boy will pay. Right after we deal Draco and Chip.**_" Suddenly the door to his room opened and Virustoxico turned to see Jekyll in the doorway. "_**What are you doing here?**_" they asked. Suddenly Jekyll jumped on them and uploaded a virus into them. As Virustoxico screamed with pain, Jekyll ran out of the room and back to Silvia. Silvia smiled and said, "Thanks for returning that virus to the sender. Why did you come with us, by the way?" "What? Stay there with those weirdos? Fat chance, you guys are much better."

* * *

There's another chapter. Now we know a lot things about Silvia and NegaMorph, asides from they now own Jekyll. But hey, you win some, you lose some. Ghostfreak's new Omnitrix form is based on the drawing I made of him on deviantART. I hope you like this chapter and will read the next chapter. Please review. 


	9. Lady NegaMorph

**Author's Note: This chapter has a T-rating because of drug abbuse, messy violence, and foul language. Not recommended for impressionable children.**

**Retrieval Saga**

**The Omnitrix Ordeal**

**Chapter 9: Lady NegaMorph**

Today, we find the gang in a very rare state. I'm not referring to the State they're in, which happened to be Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah, to be precise. No, I'm referring to the state of mind they are in, which is quite uncommon for them: total relaxation. They had drove there and got a few rooms in a 4-Stars hotel. And the best, and most surprising, part is there is now crime going on at all. For once, Matt and Chris can spend a day in civilian clothes. The others were greatly enjoying it as well, because this hotel actually allowed pets, so the experiments could stay. However, this was just one problem. Morph had become fed up with being used as the Omnitrix's substitute Master Control and refused to go inside it. But then he unwisely decided to go for a swim in the lake the city was named after. Owing to the high salt-concentration of the water and Morph's body structure, he broke out in hives and was incapable of going inside the Omnitrix anyways.

Matt had just returned from the workout room, his skin slightly gleaming from the sweat he had worked up. "Boy is this being a good vacation," he said, "plenty of fresh air, all-you-can-eat buffets, and no one around to bother us." As he walked into the lounge, he noticed a new copy of the local newspaper. "Let's see what's going on around here," Matt said to himself. He picked it and his smile quickly vanished when he read the headline: "MYSTERIOUS SHADOW THIEF STRIKES CITY!" Matt kept reading the article which said, "There have been reports about a strange being that has been robbing several banks, jewellery stores, and electronic stores. The few witnesses to these crimes describe the perpetrator as a shadowy creature with red eyes. This thing seems to have some control over shadows as they manipulate to its will. Citizens are warned to alert the police if they see the thief and there is a reward for anyone who can provide information about it."

Matt quickly summoned the others who looked over the newspaper article. "Sounds like NegaMorph to me," said Chris. "But this isn't his style," said Kala, "he wouldn't pull off common burglaries and let himself be seen. Besides, why would he? The Empire must have a large pay check for him." "I don't know," said Max, "but something is definitely up. We should split up and try to cover the town." "I know someone who can easily find this shadow thief," said Ben and activated the Omnitrix. Matt turned to talk to Ben and took a step back when all he saw was a foot. "What the heck? Dear lord, I've dropped into a Japanese monster movie," he said slowly, stepping back to look up to Way Big's face.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Gwen called up, "you'll squash the city under your oversized feet." "You have a point there," said Way Big and he bent down to pick Morph up. He held Morph up to the Omnitrix and had him change him into Wildvine. After Grandpa Max had divided the teams up, he said, "Okay, any questions?" Chris raised a hand and said, "Uh, those things on Wildvine's shoulders, are those eyes?" "Can we get a move on?" said Wildvine, visibly disgruntled.

Matt, Chris, Draco, Chip and Morph had set up shop in the main shopping street. "Matt? Why are we waiting here?" said Chip in her Chixie disguise. Matt just smirked while Chris said, "Look at all the jewellery stores…more precisely…that one," pointing to a store across from them. Matt pointed and said, "Strange it's closed early…eh?...here we go."

A shadowy form familiar to anyone who'd met NegaMorph literally blew the door apart. "That's definitely NegaMorph," said Chris, getting up and giving chase with Matt and the others. Matt jumped aside as the figure fired a darkness shot at them. He needn't have dodged as the shot went wide. "That's not like blob boy. He usually hits what he wants to blast," said Chris as another shot missed and blew a fire hydrant apart.

Matt and Morph had to screech to a halt as a police car just missed them. "Down there," he said pointing to a side alley. "We can catch up that way." Morph took a look at the alley nervously. "You mean the dark, ominous alley of doom?" Morph said. Matt shrugged and went first before walking out again. "See? Nothing's wrong. Now c'mon. We have to help the…ah." Matt had turned round to see NegaMorph looking at him. "Oh…er…wait. Weren't we chasing you?" he said before NegaMorph swiped him out the way.

"Usually, I'd fight you but I'm busy." said NegaMorph as Morph helped Matt up. "Busy making chaos, catching clones and being a general pain?...Oh…and robbing stores. What's wrong? Pay check bounce?" said Matt, walking after him. NegaMorph growled angrily and said, "Someone is dragging my name through the mud…IF ANYONE'S GOING TO DO THAT…I WILL…wait a sec…that sounds wrong."

Matt stopped where he was, causing Morph to walk into his leg. "You mean you haven't been doing those robberies?" NegaMorph glared at Matt with the eye on his tail and said, "You really think I would stoop to such petty crimes with the level of powers I have? But apparently someone would and is doing so. So don't even think about getting between me and this rip-off or you'll be seeing who the real master around here is." Then NegaMorph sliced a public mailbox in half and went around a corner. As Matt stared in shock, Morph picked an envelope and said, "Ooh, I may already be a winner for $1000."

Elsewhere, Chris, Draco, and Chip were hot on the trail on the phantom-like thief. As the chase progressed, it became more and more apparent how amateurish this thing's fighting style was. It tripped over trash cans, had a wild firing range, and took a lot more hits than it gave. "C'mon NegaMorph," said Draco as a blast went over his head, "if you're going to keep this up, don't fight like a rookie." "That's because I am a rookie! Now leave me alone," said the thief and a miserable attempt at slicing at Draco. Now Chris, Draco, and Chip were 100 sure that something was up because the thief's voice sounded nothing like NegaMorph's. It was less harsh, a bit lighter, and above all, more feminine?

Then Chris came up with a great tactical manoeuvre that will trap this enigmatic figure and prevent its escape until they can tell what it was. "DOGPILE!" called Chris and jumped on top of the shadow thief. Draco and Chip jumped on top too and forced the thief to the ground. "Get off of me!" it called. "Not until we see who you really are," said Chris. Suddenly the timer on the thief's watch beeped and the thief sighed and said, "You're gonna find out now."

Suddenly the shadows around the thief's body started to fade and the body underneath started to change shape. The trio got off to see what they were dealing with. However, they were quite surprised to see a girl of about 13 years of age where the thief was. She had red hair with black highlights which matched her red eyes but clashed with her pale skin. She was wearing a ripped black T-shirt with no sleeves, a pair of dirty green cargo pants, and black shoes. She also had a bracelet of pewter fangs on her right wrist, a band with a small pair of lips on it on her left elbow, three bands on her right elbow, a small black choker on her neck and an earring of a red eye on her left ear.

Naturally, everyone's question was, "Who are you?" The girl got up and said, "If you really need to know, I'm Megan Roph. And you've apparently caught yourself a thief." "Not only that," said Chip, "we've caught an impostor." "What? Oh, you must know NegaMorph. I guess you could say I was posing as him." "How do you know NegaMorph?" asked Draco. Megan waved a hand and said, "Long story, too long to say. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a hideout to return to." She started to leave but Chris grabbed her wrist and put it behind her back. "You're not going anywhere," said Chris. "Let me go!" yelled Megan and suddenly the shadows nearby started to lift off the ground and walls and float towards Draco, Chip, and Chris. "Nice try," said Draco and he used a combination of his breath powers and his prism sword to drive the shadows back. Then Chris grabbed Megan's other wrist and said, "Now, you're going to take us to your hideout and when Matt and Morph get here, you're telling us everything."

**A few minutes later…**

Matt and Morph had received the call from Chris and were rushing over to where they were supposed to meet. It turned out to be in an older section of the city. He stopped in front of the building he was supposed to meet the others at and double-check the address. "An abandoned theatre?" he said, "That's so cliché." Matt found a spot where someone had removed just enough boards to get in. Apparently the others were here since the hole had recently been widened enough for one of Chris's size to get through. Matt crawled through the space while Morph oozed between the cracks.

Matt looked around and shouted, "Guys, where are you?" "Over here," called Chip's voice. Matt and Morph followed the direction Chip's voice came from and stopped at one of the dressing rooms. Inside were Draco, Chip, Chris, and a 13-year old girl whom Matt suspected was the impostor. The loot from the robberies was scattered about the room. "So this is the little lady that started all this commotion," said Matt jokingly, "I just met someone who was looking for you." "Let me guess," said the girl sarcastically, "the police?" "No, the alien whose powers you're ripping off. How are you doing that by the way?"

The girl, who Matt was told later was Megan, showed Matt a chemistry set with various glasses filled with some foul-looking stuff. "I met NegaMorph back in New York City a few weeks ago. I was hanging out with a gang then until they insulted NegaMorph and attacked them." Chris whistled and said, "So that story about NegaMorph getting pissed off by a group of teenagers is true?" "I'm living proof," said Megan. "You don't look EXP infected," said Draco. "That's because he didn't bit me, but I got a sample of him. I could control shadows before then but I found a way to make this stuff work for me." "How so?" asked Matt.

"I got these two drugs off the interdimensional black market," said Megan holding up two different bottles. "This is Mutant Growth Hormone, or MGH for short, and this is OZ. I mixed them with the plasma so I can use NegaMorph's powers." Chip took the two bottles and after scanning them said, "These drugs are really unstable. Alone, they could do a lot of damage to a person's body. But coupling them both with NegaMorph's DNA is just plain asking for trouble." Megan scoffed and said, "It isn't hurting me none. Soon everyone will stop knowing me as boring old Megan Roph but as the amazing Lady NegaMorph!" "How can you do that if you don't tell anyone who you are?" asked Morph. Megan slapped her forehead and muttered, "Stupid me, I knew I was forgetting to do something at those robberies."

"Can I speak to you in private?" said Megan, pulling Matt by the arm into one of the larger storerooms. She then looked soulfully at Matt, "Please don't turn me in to the cops or NegaMorph." Matt just leaned back and asked, "How long have you had these powers?" Megan sighed and began to explain, "I was born with them. Me and a few other kids thought it was cool…especially around Halloween. When my parents found out though…"

Matt shook his head sadly, "They didn't take it well?" Megan laughed coldly. "Take it well? I was thrown out the same day…not that you'd…understand?" she said, the last word was in a confused tone as Matt was juggling a tiny plasma ball. "Sorry? Missed that last part," he said, extinguishing it. "Sorry, Megan. I really am, but what you're doing is wrong and dangerous. I gotta turn you in…if only for your own good," he said sadly.

Megan sighed and said, "Oh, in that case." Suddenly Megan hit Matt between the legs with her knee. As Matt cried out and fell over, Megan ran out the door. Chris and Morph heard the cry and ran to the other room. "Matt?" asked Chris when he noticed the position Matt was in, "what happened?" "I'll tell you what happened!" cried Matt, "that little two-faced…"

_Author's note: I'm afraid we have to censor out this small part because the language Matt uses here is quite graphic and unsuitable for anyone's ears (Note from Largefish8: It's probably untranslatable as well). Don't be mad at me for doing this, you don't want to hear it. If you did, you'd end up looking like Morph here. (Morph has a shocked expression frozen on his face, his eyes are pointing in different directions, his hives had gone limp, and there's smoke coming out of where his ears would be.) We now return to the story in progress._

Matt was now limping out the door into the hallway. "Where are you going?" called Chris. "I'm going to have her thrown in jail…if I don't feed her to NegaMorph first," Matt yelled before blasting a hole in the boards over the door. Draco and Chip had just finished in the first dressing room and were walking out. "What's going on?" asked Draco noting the new 'door'. Chris told Draco and Chip a brief and, ironically, censored version of what just happened. Draco winced and said, "Ooh, that is a tender area." "We gotta catch up before Matt does something stupid," said Chris. Before Draco and Chip ran after Chris, they picked the slightly-petrified Morph and said, "Good heavens, what happened to him?"

By then, Megan had left the theatre and was racing down a side alley. She stopped to catch her breath and said, "That'll show him. No one catches the amazing Lady NegaMorph." "Lady NegaMorph, eh?" said a voice, "that's why you go by nowadays?" Megan spun around to see NegaMorph only 5 feet away from her. "NegaMorph," she gasped, "how did…" "I find you?" finished NegaMorph, "it's not that hard to track you, especially when you show off those powers you stole from me. I was wondering who'd have the gumption to try and impersonate me, but I wouldn't have thought it'd be the ignorant little shadow-bender from New York." The pupil in NegaMorph's large eye started to turn red as he said, "Your friends made a pretty costly mistake. And you've just made a bigger one!"

Matt tore round the corner in hot pursuit of Megan, intent on revenge. He tore out of the alley he'd seen Megan go down and spotted her, struggling to defend herself from NegaMorph. _'You know…we could just watch…'_ said V-627 in his head. Matt was actually tempted before saying, "Nah…I wouldn't do that…HEY BLOBBY! HEADS UP!" he yelled at NegaMorph before tossing two plasma balls into NegaMorph's side. NegaMorph just yelled angrily and charged Matt instead, firing a few fangs in his direction out of mindless fury.

Matt dodged them then pulled Megan out the way as Chris, Draco and Chip arrived. "Stay here!" Matt said firmly to Megan as they stopped on the sidewalk out the way. Megan grinned, "Of course," while simultaneously thinking _'Sucker!'_ A clink got her attention…Matt had used some energy cuffs to lock her to a bus stop…not that it mattered…a second later another wayward shot melted half the stop and Megan was free again.

Another noise got her attention as Ben as Wildvine swooped in towards the melee and swooped out again. "Was that a blue koala?" Megan said confused.

--------------------------

Stitch reached out and grabbed 'Megan' just as NegaMorph was about to blast her. "Don't worry, little girl, you're safe with…" He took a closer look at his rescuee as it shimmered into the shape of Chip. "…Woops," he said. Chip just glared and said, "You stupid, me mad."

-----------------------------

Matt and Chris just stared in surprise as Stitch swept up Chip with Wildvine. "Where's Stitch taking Chip?" said Chris slowly. A _'ping'_ caused them to duck as Nega began firing his fangs in rapid fire sequence at them. One of the shots bounced off the asphalt of the street and shot into Megan's right arm. "Ah, nuts," said Matt.

Megan cried out in pain and grabbed at where the fang had penetrated her arm. To her horror, she saw the fang dissolve into black goo and start to spread on her arm. And to make things even worse, the wound the fang had created was bleeding black goo. As Matt and Chris watched, Matt said, "What's going on?" "Well," said Draco, "Chris mentioned that the 'Nega-drug' was sorta like the EXP Virus and Chip said that it's actually different. He also said something bad would happen if the virus mixed with the residual drug in Megan's system, but he didn't say what specifically."

Now Megan's right arm was totally covered with black goo and it seemed to be melting. Wherever the goo touched her body, that part started to melt too. Suddenly she seemed to choke up and black goo started coming out of her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. The goo quickly covered her head and ran down her body. In a few moments, she was completely covered in the stuff and seemed to be melting down. She raised her left arm in what seemed like a desperate plea, but then she fell down and totally subsided into a black puddle. By then, Stitch, Chip, and Wildvine had already returned and had watched the entire process. "Ugh," said Wildvine, "what a way to go," before the Omnitrix timed out and turned him back into Ben.

"I guess there's nothing left to do but clean up," said Morph, who had come over his shock. Before the others could agree, the puddle suddenly started bubbling. Then the liquid gathered up into a lumpish blob and started growing upwards. Then it started forming a slightly humanoid form. Suddenly Matt noticed that the shadows nearby where peeling themselves off the walls. Morph's shadow zipped off so fast, it caused him to trip and fall on his patookie. The shadows covered parts of the forming figure until the entire form had settled.

What they were looking at is a bit hard to describe. (You might need to check my deviantART account.) Basically, it looked like a female version of a humanoid NegaMorph. She had five pupil-less red eyes in the middle of her face, two elf-like ears on the right side, and one larger eye with a pupil on the left side. She had several red dreadlock-like tentacles that ended in hooks for hair. Her right arm had three spikes coming from the elbow and a mouth covering her four-clawed hand. She had three left arms that ended in four-clawed hands with a mouth in the middle of her middle arm. She had a pair of membrane-less bat-like wings growing from her back, the left one was made of a spike and a robotic tentacle and the right was made of two spikes and a robotic crab's claw. Her right leg ended in two feet like NegaMorph's but she had a left leg made from the tentacle leg and mechanical leg. She also had a more elegant-looking version of NegaMorph's tail.

The shadows had formed clothes for her. She wore a black beret and a black vest that showed off her midriff and the N-mouth. The vest had a cape extending from the lower backside that went to her ankles. She wore a black shirt and black boots to cover her feet. She still wore the black chocker from before. Her skin was a dark grey compared to the jet-black of NegaMorph's skin. Megan, or rather Lady NegaMorph, was in complete shock and could only say, "What happened to me?" with an alien tone behind her voice.

NegaMorph suddenly knocked Megan down and drew out his Lockblade. He pressed his twin-footed leg down on Megan's stomach and raised the Lockblade for a finishing stroke. The others were taking it all in and didn't do anything, although Matt did here V-627 chant, _'Do it! Do it!'_ As NegaMorph glared down at Megan, the arm holding the Lockblade up shook slightly, then he sighed and lowered the Lockblade. "I can't do it," he said, "she may be pirating my powers and ruining my reputation, but she's close to me now. Not in an emotional way, of course, but more like a blood kin." "So you won't kill me, Uncle NegaMorph?" asked Megan. NegaMorph looked thoughtful and said, "No, but you're not getting off Scot-free."

He slashed a hole in the air with the Lockblade, creating a red and black portal. Then he grabbed Megan Roph and threw her into the portal, which closed after she went through. "What did you do to her?" asked Ben. "I sent her to another world where she won't hurt my reputation, but won't get into serious trouble. I might do something to you lot, but I've had enough for today. Smell you later." And with that, he vanished in a flash of darkness. The seven of them blinked and stared before Matt said, "So does this mean we don't get the reward money?"

**Meanwhile, in another realm…**

A red and black portal suddenly materialized in what looked like a public park and Megan fell out. As she got to her feet, the portal closed behind her. When she saw that, she clenched her now sharp teeth and growled, "Oh, I'm so going to get back at him. I will not be sent off like that." Suddenly she heard footsteps and hid in some bushes near a bench. A man and a woman walked over to the bench and sat down. Megan noticed their clothes were a bit more old-fashioned than what she normally sees. She also noticed that the man had a small red horn under his grey bangs. She listened in as the couple chatted.

"Thank goodness those Golems finally let me leave the house," said the man, "I'm not sure how much more I can take." "But don't you have that Slander demon, Murdoch?" asked the woman. "I don't try to use her if I can," said Murdoch uncomfortably. "You don't think I'd leave you because you're a necromancer would you?" said the woman and she kissed Murdoch on the cheek. As Murdoch blushed, Megan made a silent gagging noise.

"So tell me about where those Golems came from," said Murdoch's girlfriend. Murdoch stretched and said, "It's a long story, but those golems used to belong to the Seven Deadly Sins. Or rather the Shades that personified them. They wanted a break from being controlled by the Gold and Silver Gauntlets so they asked me to make some Golems so they could have a vacation. When they decided to come back, I hid the Golem bodies in a cave and they've somehow come back to life." "How is that possible?" asked Murdoch's girlfriend. "I don't know, I should really look into it before I get badgered by even more Golems." As the couple walked away, Megan said to herself, "Gauntlets that control the Seven Deadly Sins, eh? Sounds like the perfect prize for Lady NegaMorph."

* * *

There's another chapter. It's a lot shorter than I thought it would be. But now I'm authorized by the State of Indiana to post this little moral session. (Actually, I'm not, but I'm doing so anyways.

* * *

Draco: This sure was a crazy adventure we had today.

Chip: It certainly was, but there's a lesson to be learned here. A lesson about taking drugs.

Draco: I thought medicine was good for you.

Chip: If used properly, it is. But some people use drugs for other purposes besides health. But other times, they are using it for their health, but they get addicted to it.

Draco: That sounds bad.

Chip: It is. People who have become addicted a certain drug will do anything to support that need. People who abuse drugs will fail at school, lose friends, or could end up in jail.

Draco: So remember, ask your family practioner if a certain drug is right for you, don't take any pills that are unrecommended. Because Megan's fate was hardly the worse one possible.

* * *

And now that the serious part is over, you should know that Lady NegaMorph will appear again. When? I'm not sure. For those of you who don't know, the world the last part of the chapter took place in was based on the webcomic, Sin Venials. It's really funny, I recommend it. There's just one more chapter after this, so keep an eye out for it. Please review. 


	10. Watch Storm

**Retrieval Saga **

The Omnitrix Ordeal

**Chapter 10: Watch Storm**

Now it's been about a month since Matt and the crew had joined the Tennysons. Matt had been trying to contact the Shadow Hawk, not just the time where they met those Loboans, but other times too, but he kept getting the wrong signal. A few times he thought he did have it, but it was busy and yet he thought he could hear party music. But this time when he tried, he finally succeeded. It was answer by a very-tired sounding Techo. When Techo heard who was calling, Matt could have sworn he was weeping with joy. He told Matt to meet him at Memphis, Tennessee. When Lilo and Max heard about where the meeting point was, they immediately agreed to go. They had both been dying to see Graceland. Max could still remember seeing Elvis perform live, never was a better rock star after him. Lilo wanted to see Elvis's final resting place, just to make sure he was there. Matt was pretty sure Elvis was dead, but then again, why would they have a spaceport nearby.

The gang eventually made it to Memphis. Lilo was hyped up on seeing Elvis's home by then so Matt let her and several of the others go check it out. Only Ben, Gwen, Kala, Draco, and Stitch didn't want to go. "I can see Graceland anytime," said Ben, "when I will get to see a spaceport again?" Gwen had agreed for the same reason. The experiments wanted to see their crewmates before going. Max dropped them off at the spaceport, which was cunningly disguised as a Mexican restaurant not too far from Graceland. Strangely, Lilo said Elvis ate here often.

Inside the spaceport, there were several alien species. A few Ben and Gwen recognized but several were hard to tell. Ben saw a weird-looking guy with a ventriloquist dummy walking by and said, "That's the worst disguise ever. That guy's definitely an alien." The dummy turned its head and said, "Hey, I don't criticize your outfit." Gwen noticed a discoloured blob on the floor and said, "Ew! Some alien's been sick here." The blob muttered, "Hyperspace doesn't agree with me, alright?" and scuttled away on previously hidden spider legs. "There sure are a lot of weird aliens here," said Draco, "look at that one that looks like a potted rose." "That is a potted rose," said Matt. "That's what they want you to think," said Stitch.

Eventually, they reached the spot where the Shadow Hawk was docked. Waiting for them was Techo, Angel, Reuben, and Contrinus. Angel and Contrinus cried, "Boojie-boo!" and ran over to give Stitch and Draco a kiss. Kala watched with a mixed look of happiness for them and envy. Reuben looked at Ben and Gwen and said, "So those are those Tennyson kids I heard so much about." "Yep," said Ben, "wanna see a trick?" Ben pushed the button on the side of the Omnitrix. But before Ben could do anything else, he was suddenly turned into his EXP form. "Darn it!" he cried, "why dose it keep doing that? I didn't press any other buttons." "Maybe this'll cheer you up," said Reuben passing Ben a steaming cup. "No, don't, please," whined Techo. Ben chugged down the contents of the cup and suddenly started twitching uncontrollably. Matt glared at Techo and said, "I thought I told you to keep them away from the coffee." Techo grabbed Matt's shoulder and yelled, "They stole the key from me! That's not the only thing! They've throw wild parties, spray-painted everywhere and hung me from the ceiling with toilet paper!" Matt looked at Techo and said, "I bet you wish you stayed in New York, don't you?" "No, but just barely."

They had just managed to get Ben calmed down and returned him back to human form when someone from the reception desk called out, "Benjamin Tennyson, you have a message at Phone Six. Benjamin Tennyson, you have a message at Phone Six." "Who could that be from?" asked Ben. "Well, I need to check up on the Shadow Hawk," said Matt, "go ahead and check that call, phones over that way." Ben went in the direction Matt pointed and came upon several communication machines that were built quite similar to the videophones in Pokemon.

He went over to the one with the number 6 over it. He picked the speaker and spoke into it, "Hello?" The video screen in front of him came to life and showed a very familiar face. "Hello, Omnitrix-boy." "Dr. Jookiba?" said Ben. "Please, call me Jumba," said Jumba. "Why are you calling me?" asked Ben. "Well, I was going to Galaxy Defence Industries convention to see what they've been working on. And while I was there, I found old college I use to work with. We were catching up on old time and then we find out we have both recently met you." "Really?" asked Ben, "Who was that?"

Then a small grey alien appeared on Jumba's shoulder and said, "That would be me." "Azmuth? You worked at Galaxy Defence Industries?" "Sure, they're always glad to have Galvans working for them. But when we started working on the Omnitrix project, I found that in this case too many chefs spoiled the broth, if you know what I mean. No offence, Jumba." "It's alright," said Jumba, "I prefer working alone too."

"So, how did you know where I was and why'd you call me?" asked Ben. "To answer your first question, I built in a tracking device into the Omnitrix so I can check up on it every once and a while," said Azmuth, "Haven't used it for a while, but it still works." "As for second question, when we both learned we had your acquaintance, we decided to work on something together for your Omnitrix." "What is it?" asked Ben excitedly. "It is new form for Omnitrix, made from blueprints of my own genetic experiments. I created the genetic sequence while Azmuth designed it to be downloaded into Omnitrix. We are sending it over now."

Another part of the machine (where the Pokeballs were teleported on Pokemon) crackled with energy and a small ball appeared in a flash of light. Ben picked it up and looked it over. It was the same shade of green as the Omnitrix when it was fully charged. It looked like an experiment pod, but instead of a number, it had a small icon on it that obviously was the silhouette of the alien inside. "So, do I put in water or what?" asked Ben. "Nope," said Azmuth, "just put it on the face and it will download into the Omnitrix." "But I thought Jumba made so that experiment DNA couldn't be downloaded into it," said Ben. "Downloaded accidentally," corrected Jumba, "this is intentional download so pod is made with molecular energy crystal. But before you use it, I must warn you: while this form will be useful, it can also be dangerous. When you use it, the more excited you get, the harder it is to control your urges, particularly your destructive ones." "Not that you can use it," said Azmuth, "for a while that is. The teleportation will have shorted it out slightly. You won't be able to download it for about an Earth hour. But I'm sure you'll find a good use for it." Soon after that, Jumba and Azmuth hung up and Ben put the pod in his pocket. Then he walked back to where the others were.

When he got there, he saw that the experiments and Techo were gone. "Where'd they go?" asked Ben. "They went off to see the town," said Gwen. Then Matt came back from the ship and said, "Well, everything seems to working well, there's a bit of a mess in there, but nothing we can't clean up. Say, while we wait for the others, how we go for a ride?" "I don't know," said Gwen, "I'm not sure I'd want to fly in something that there's been a party in for weeks." "No, I mean in the escape cruiser," said Matt. "Escape cruiser?" asked Ben. "Sorta like the space equivalent to a long boat," explained Matt, "they'll be much cleaner and good for a thrill ride." Ben and Gwen considered the possibilities; go to an Elvis museum or cruise around in a spaceship. "Shotgun!" they both yelled and went aboard the Shadow Hawk with Matt behind them.

Minutes later, they were flying around the area between Earth and Mars. The cousins were getting a thrill from this ride. But eventually, Gwen stopped whooping to ask Ben, "By the way, what was call about anyway?" Ben described how Jumba and Azmuth had given him a pod with a new form in it. "Ah," moaned Gwen, "how you get all the cool upgrades?" "Because my powers can be upgraded," said Ben. "Hey! Mine can be upgraded too! What about the time when the Keystone of Bezel was working for me?" "That's not an upgrade," argued Ben, "Just something equipped to you that makes you better." "Oh, look whose talking, Mr. 'I-can't-do-a-thing-without-the-watch'!" "I am not!" The cousins continued to argue and it proved very distracting to Matt, as proven by the slight eye twitch. Then Matt couldn't take it anymore and he turned his head around and yelled, "You two keep quiet or we're pulling over!" Ben and Gwen were about to reply when they both noticed something out the front window and yelled, "Look out!" Matt looked and saw he was heading straight for another ship.

In the other ship, a small fighter ship to be exact, the pilot was having an argument with his fellow passenger, NegaMorph. "All I'm saying is that they can't stay on Earth forever and they have to go into space at some point." "Well I don't care about how often you zoom around in this place," said NegaMorph, "the chances of us finding those guys out here must be 1:946." Suddenly the radar picked up something going really fast. They both looked up to see another ship coming right at them. They both screamed and the pilot managed to jack-knife out of the way at the same time as the other guy. "Wait!" cried NegaMorph, "that was Lynch! Go after them!" As the pilot started after them, NegaMorph muttered, "If you even think about saying 'I told you so' you're going to get bit."

"What was that?" asked Gwen. "An Empire ship," said Matt, "and unless I'm mistaken, NegaMorph was in the co-pilot seat." Suddenly the radar started beeping, showing several dots. Matt cursed in Splitter and said, "Looks like they've called for back-up. You both have your seatbelts on, right? Cause it's gonna be a bumpy ride." 'Bumpy' didn't fully describe what happened next. Several Imperial fighter ships came soaring at them, guns toting. It was mostly disabling shots, since they were wanted alive. Matt had to use every trick he knew to keep himself away from the ships. He even managed to hit a couple. But then a larger battleship appeared and grabbed Matt's ship by the afterburner with a tractor beam.

"Guess we'll have to fight our way out now," said Matt, extending his ion staff. "I'm way ahead of you," said Ben, quickly going through the different selections on the watch before he found the one he was looking for. With a flash of green light, Fourarms appeared. "Alright!" said the Tetramand, "got what I asked for!" "Fine for you," said Gwen, "but there's hardly enough room for us!" "There will be when they pull us into their docking bay," said Matt.

Eventually, the cruiser was pulled into the battleship's docking bay. Drones entered the bay to apprehend the captives in the captured ship. But the second they opened the door, they were thrown back by Fourarms' sonic clap attack. Then several bolts of plasma and magical energy were thrown at them by Matt and Gwen. The drones opened fire, but Gwen had her shield spell ready for her and Matt. Fourarms just charged on through, punching aside robots as he went. "These guys aren't that different from Vilgax's bots," said Fourarms as he crushed two robots together and threw them at some others. Suddenly the drones launched several small grenades that let out a foul-smelling knockout gas. Matt and Gwen eventually succumbed to it, but Fourarms was holding his breath, hoping his larger lungs will keep him safe. But suddenly the Omnitrix logo started flashing red and Fourarms said, "Vilgax wouldn't have resorted to this." Then the Omnitrix timed out and Ben could no longer fight against the gas. The last thing he saw where the drones picking up Matt and Gwen.

When Ben woke up, he found that he was with Gwen and Matt in a cage. The cage was positioned near what looked to be the main docking spot on the battleship. "Uh, how long have I been out?" Ben asked. "I'd say about three minutes," said Gwen. "Why are we here and not in the brig?" "Apparently," said Matt, "there'll be someone coming aboard who wants to have a look at us and doesn't like the long walk to the brig." "Too bad he'll never see us," said Ben as he pressed the button on the side of the Omnitrix. But then he looked down and saw that it was still in the red. "Drat," he muttered, "guess we're stuck here for a bit. How do we know when whoever it is arrives?"

The answer to that question came very soon. Several soldiers marched into the room and stood in rows on either side of the port door. Then they went into military salute formation. Then the officers of the ship came in; Silvia, NegaMorph, and Virustoxico. Tuatara also came, although he was on a leash so he could be controlled. As the officers stood next to the cage, Matt said, "So, I guess someone really important is coming." "The most important being in the Empire," said Silvia.

Then the light above the port door flashed red, signalling that was someone had docked in their ship and was now coming aboard. Then the door opened and some mist came out, caused by the change in atmosphere. Then Silvia cried out, "All hail Emperor Hamsterviel!" "Hail!" shouted the soldiers. Matt, Ben, and Gwen looked around in confusion and then Matt said, "I don't see anyone." "Down here, you earth-crawling bipeds!" shouted a high voice. They looked down and saw a small rodent-like alien wearing a red cape with an H clasping it at the throat, holding a sceptre, and a quite large crown on its head. "So," said Hamsterviel, "Matthew Lynch the Traveller, we meet at last."

But instead of the awe and fear he was expecting, Matt, Ben, and Gwen started laughing loudly. "You're the Emperor, Shorty?" laughed Matt. "I AM NOT SHORT!" yelled Hamsterviel and he pressed a button on his sceptre. Part of the cage electrified Matt, but the cousins kept laughing. "The Great and Powerful Emperor is a chinchilla?" said Ben. "I AM NOT A CHINCHILLA!" yelled Hamsterviel and pressed his button again. Curiously, only Matt got zapped. "Aw," said Gwen, "he's so cute." "I AM NOT CUTE!" yelled Hamsterviel and Matt got zapped again. Hamsterviel looked from Matt's slightly smoking body to his sceptre and said, "Hmm, that cage's systems needs to be fixed."

"If I may ask, sir," said Silvia, "for what reason have you honoured us with this visit?" "Ah, I was getting to that," said Hamsterviel, "First; I wanted to have a look at the interdimensional wanderer who's been causing so much trouble. Also, I have a little matter of business to attend to. I am hereby relieving you of your position." "What!?" cried Silvia and NegaMorph. "You heard me," said Hamsterviel, "you have been slipping up for quite a while. If it weren't for the fact that the incidents in New York and with Experiment 717 were involuntary, you wouldn't be able to stand here. But fortunately for you, you're just on probation." Silvia made a small twitch with her knuckle but said nothing. "So the other reason I came here was so I can present the one who will be taking your place until you shape up a bit." Then another person stepped through the door. He looked like a human man, but he was completely covered in armour. "I would like you to meet Commander Jaidan Korvak," said Hamsterviel, "he'll be your new captain as a further notice."

"I thank you for this honour, sir," said Korvak with a stereotypical military dialect, "I promise you that I will whip all these men into shape, no matter what species they really are." "There goes poker night," muttered NegaMorph. "And to prove my loyalty," continued Korvak, "my first action as captain will be to bring these rebels under Empire control." "And how are you going to that?" asked Gwen. "With Experiment -630 of course." "'With Experiment -630 of course'" muttered NegaMorph under his breath, "Bah! He won't be bossing me around." "Well tough luck," said Matt, "Ben and I have already been bitten by the pet of yours and we've been vaccinated." Korvak looked at NegaMorph who shrugged and said, "Technically it's true, it was V-627 who bit Matt." "No matter," said Korvak, "7-1-7 is quite capable of voiding your immunity." "Too bad you don't have him," said Ben.

"Guess again," said a voice. Matt, Ben, and Gwen looked and saw Jekyll standing not to far away. "In case you're wondering," said NegaMorph, "he followed us back after his affects wore off last time." "Jekyll," said Gwen, "how could you?" The purple dragon shrugged and said, "Nothing personal, I'd think I'd like hanging out with these guys more than you guys. It's a lot less hectic." "You little turncoat," growled Matt. "Enough talk," said Commander Korvak, "7-1-7, activate the Tennyson boy's AI." Jekyll saluted and said, "Yes sir." He turned to Ben and released a blast of white light from his mouth. He was aiming for Ben's head, but Ben's defensive reflexes caused him to raise his left arm in protection. Because of that, the blast hit the Omnitrix dead-centre.

The affect was not quite was expected. The Omnitrix started letting off green sparks but then the sparks grew into crackles of energy. Then the Omnitrix let off a feedback pulse not unlike when it was preparing to self-destruct, except this one was green. The pulse went through the bars of the cage and threw everyone back. The machines seemed to have been short-circuited while the rest were simply knocked-out by the hit against the wall. "What the heck was that?" asked Gwen. "I don't know," said Ben, "but at least the watch is at full charge again. Hang on, I'll have us out it a second." Ben quickly select Grey Matter's form and activated it. "Not to sound too pessimistic," said Matt, "but I don't think that little guy's going to get us out of here." "You've never met a Galvan before have you?" said Grey Matter. "Can't say that I have." "Then watch this." Grey Matter hopped over to the lock of the cage and very easily figured out how to open it. As Matt and Gwen stepped out of the cage, Grey Matter jumped onto Gwen's shoulder and said, "We need to get moving to the escape pod bay. That's where they'll be keeping our cruiser. And judging from the style of this ship, the main interconnection point for two ships should be quite a bit of a distance from the escape pods. But if I know my schematics right, we should go through the mess hall which will be down that corridor." As the three of them moved on, Matt said in amazement, "How can you cram that much stuff in such a tiny brain?"

Not too much later, everyone on the ship was looking for Matt and the Tennysons. NegaMorph was looking for them too, but he had another objective to accomplish. He had stopped in front of a wire box and was making alterations. "Let's see how long that usurper Korvak's in command after he screws up right in Hamsterviel's face," he muttered as he crossed another pair of wires and put a third one in a new outlet. Then he heard someone coming and he closed the box and turned around.

It was just a grunt soldier. "What are you doing?" asked the grunt. "Just making sure that the little Galvan had tampered with the ship," said NegaMorph. "Good," said the grunt, "we won't want the ship to act up on Captain Korvak's first day would we?" "No we wouldn't" said NegaMorph, hiding a sly grin. Then NegaMorph changed the subject and said, "Did you hear what those guys called Hamsterviel?" "Yeah, saying that the Emperor was a chinchilla." "Disgraceful." The grunt went away muttering, "What is a chinchilla anyways?" As soon as the grunt was gone, NegaMorph took out a notepad and said, "Chinchilla, I've got to write that down."

Meanwhile, Gwen and Matt were getting closer to the mess hall, thanks to Grey Matter's directions. "How can you know this ship's schematics so well?" asked Matt. "I don't know," said Grey Matter, "Grey Matter just seems to know these things as soon as he sees them." Suddenly the Omnitrix logo on his back flashed red and he turned back into Ben. Fortunately, he was on the floor at that time. "Don't worry," said Ben, "I remember that the mess hall should be around this corner. After that, it'll be easy to find the escape pod bay." So the three of them went around the corner, and walked right into a group of grunt soldiers. "Okay, didn't see this coming." "Raise your hands in the air nice and slow," said one of the grunts, aiming his weapon. The three of them were about to reply while they thought of a way out of this when the Omnitrix started sparking again. Then another feedback pulse came out of it, only larger and more intense. The pulse knocked out the guards while our heroes narrowly avoided it. "Are you sure it's not getting ready to blow up?" asked Gwen as she got back up. "If it was, it'd be glowing orange," said Ben, "I just hope there aren't anymore guards like these in the mess hall."

When the three of them walked in, there weren't any guards, but there sure was a lot of battle droids. Matt whistled and said, "Wow, these guys are state-of-the-art tech." "Let's see how state-of-the-art they are next to Upgrade," said Ben as he activated the watch. But instead, he turned into a small, green, slightly gelatinous, woodchuck-like alien. "What the, I said Up_grade_, not Up_chuck_! Stupid watch!" "Uh, what does this guy do?" asked Matt. "Trust me," said Gwen, "you don't wanna know." Suddenly the droids started making advancements on them. "It's feeding time!" said Upchuck and he opened his mouth and shot out his four long tongues. The tongues grabbed a droid and carried it back to Upchuck's mouth where he swallowed it. His stomach glowed green for a second then Upchuck spat out a large glob of goo at the droids, which exploded on contact. Gwen used her levitation magic to smash the robots against each other, while Matt whipped out his trusty blaster. But then Matt noticed that the droids were getting in too close. So he picked up Upchuck and said, "Freeze scumbags!" He started using Upchuck as a bio-grenade launcher against the robots. "Don't make me use the other end," he called. With Matt's aiming and firing, the droids were soon completely decimated. Upchuck jumped out of Matt's arms and said, "Next time, tell me you're going to use me as a gun before you do it."

Suddenly NegaMorph walked in. He didn't notice Matt and the Tennysons at first because he was checking off a checklist. "Now to mess around with the food preparers," he muttered. He looked up and saw our heroes among the destroyed robots. NegaMorph groaned and said, "Figures that it's me that has to deal with you guys." He then noticed Ben's form and commented, "A Gourmand, eh? I guess whoever built that thing really went to impressive lengths to get that DNA." "Beat it Nega-blob," said Upchuck, "or you'll be dessert." "Nice try," said NegaMorph, "but you haven't matured enough to blend organic matter yet. But I, however, have a much stronger stomach."

As the pupil in NegaMorph's eye turned white for Gluttony, he opened his mouth and released several tongues. There were far more than four there and even Matt couldn't count how many. The disturbing part was that they had different ends on them. Some had claws, some had suction cups, some of them even had straw-like appendages apparently meant for sucking. Several tongues went into the kitchen and grabbed several articles of food. They brought into NegaMorph's mouth one by one where he swallowed them. "You ready for a monster food fight?" challenged NegaMorph. Upchuck swallowed some leftover robot parts and said, "Bring it on!"

What followed was a very intense, but quite nauseating, battle. The two of swallowed different things, organic for NegaMorph and inorganic for Upchuck, and spat them out as energy blasts. Matt and Gwen took cover behind a table Upchuck hadn't eaten yet. "When is this over?" asked Gwen. "It's over when one of them bites the dust," said Matt. Gwen gave him an odd look and he said, "No pun intended." Suddenly one of Upchuck's tongues reached around and ripped off Matt's shirt before returning to the mouth. Matt pressed a button on his time drive and a new shirt appeared on his chest. "It's a new program that Techo added," he explained, "Don't ask how it works."

The battle was getting pretty rough when Upchuck heard that familiar beeping coming from his left hand. "Looks like its over," growled NegaMorph before a glowing blue chair hit him into a wall. Gwen lowered her hand and said, "It certainly is." After Ben returned to his human form, he said, "Aw, I had him to the end of the table and he knows it." "Which table would that be?" asked Matt looking around the much emptier mess hall.

Suddenly the Omnitrix started letting off sparks again and bolts of green energy leapt out of it. "Ben!" yelled Gwen, "What did you do?" "I didn't do anything," said Ben, "something's wrong with it." Suddenly it let out another pulse of energy, this one the largest and most powerful seen. Waves of green energy went out of the watch and swept throughout the room. Everyone was thrown back by the blast. When the energy disappeared, Ben sat up, looked at the Omnitrix, and said, "What's gotten into you?" "You mean what's got out," said a voice.

Ben looked up and gasped. Standing in front of him was the spitting image of himself in his experiment form. But the look in this Ex-Ben's eyes was of a different nature then what Ben would be using. Ben had experienced this type of thing before with Ghostfreak, but this was a horse of a different colour. "How can you be here?" asked Ben, "you can't be here, you're just a virus." "Wrong," said Ex-Ben, "I am the AI of the EXP Virus, or at least my mind is. But I was just a virus at first. I was about to do my basic programming when NegaMorph bit you when Kala intervened. Instead of rewriting you physically and mentally, I was trapped in that Omnitrix for quite a long time. But unlike Ghostfreak, I remained independent of the Omnitrix. You may have used the Omnitrix to inhibit me and use my form, but I was still separate from you.

"As to my escape, you can thank Jekyll for that. I would have escaped the first time Jekyll turned his power on you, but Ghostfreak beat me to it. But nevertheless, I had woken up, from what felt like a long and forced sleep. I eventually became stronger and it was only today when I was able to make my presence in the Omnitrix." "When I turned into you at the spaceport," said Ben. "Yes, after that, it would have been a matter of days for me to break out by simply absorbing some of the molecular energy from you when you were in alien form. But Jekyll again sped up the process so I only needed two more transformations to have enough power to break out. I'm a bit upset by that, if I had to stockpile a bit longer, I would have absorbed the powers of your other aliens too, instead of the three you used today."

Suddenly the Omnitrix on Ex-Ben's wrist glowed with green light. The light spread over Ex-Ben's body until he was completely covered in it. Then he seemed to become the light and when he did so, his shape started to alter. He grew somewhat taller and a second pair of arms grew from his sides. When the light faded, Ex-Ben was now two heads taller and much more muscular. His Omnitrix was now a belt attached to his new pair of pants which were white above the knee and black below. He also wore a black vest that didn't cover his stomach, but did have white stripes that outlined his pectorals. His head had altered significantly. It was a bit smaller and had features from Grey Matter and Upchuck: the former's eyes and the latter's ears and whisker marks. "I am no longer Ex-Ben," he said with a voice that still resembled Ben's much more warped, "my name is now Omnirus. And I will now have the pleasure of crushing you."

Suddenly a bolt of plasma energy blasted Omnirus and threw him into a wall. Matt lowered his hand and said, "I told you EXP AI's were tricky." "Let's get out of here," said Ben. As Ben, Gwen, and Matt fled, Omnirus got up and said, "You're not getting rid of me that easily." NegaMorph had been watching all this and as Omnirus took off, he said to himself, "Maybe biting Ben was a bad idea."

Omnirus chased our heroes through the hallways. Along the way, he made it very clear he had the combined powers of Fourarms, Grey Matter, and Upchuck. He pounded through blast doors that stood within his way, was able to hack into nearby consoles to activate security programs, and used Upchuck's four tongues to swallow nearby objects and spit them out as exploding goo. Miraculously however, Matt and the Tennysons were able to remain ahead. Equally miraculously, they had managed to find the escape pod bay. But just as they were heading towards their ship, Omnirus came through the doorway and clapped his four hands together. This created a sonic wave that threw Ben one way and Matt and Gwen the other. Ben was about to press the activation button on the Omnitrix when Omnirus said, "Don't bother with that. I know everything about those 19 aliens you can turn into and I have their DNA in my own Omnitrix. You don't have anything that can beat me."

Just then Ben remembered something. "That could be," he said, "but I have an ace in my pocket." "You mean up your sleeve," said Omnirus. "Nope," said Ben as pulled the pod out of his pocket. Then he said, "Time to make it an even 20," he placed the pod on the watch's face. The pod glowed for a second then disappeared in a flash of yellow light. The Omnitrix's face turned yellow and spun around a few times before popping up with the silhouette from the pod highlighted. "It's hero time!" cried Ben and he slammed the face down.

There was a flash of green light and a new alien replaced Ben. It looked almost exactly like Stitch in his original alien outfit, but he had a different colour scheme. His clothes were white and black instead of red and yellow and he had the Omnitrix logo in the triangle in the middle of his chest. His eyes were green and his fur was brown with his familiar hairstyle. After a quick examination, he said, "Looks like just I became Omni-Stitch," with a voice that sounded like Stitch's. Omnirus growled and said, "New form or not, you have no chance against me." "Bring it on!" called Omni-Stitch and they charged at each other.

The battle between the two was fierce. Apparently, Omni-Stitch had all the powers of Stitch. However, Omnirus' combined powers, no matter how slightly diluted they were, were still more than a match for Omni-Stitch. That is until Omni-Stitch smacked his hand in a way to cause his index finger to flex slightly. Then a beam of positive molecular energy came out of his fingertip. Then Omni-Stitch started firing molecular beams from his other index fingers.

But then Omnirus caught all of Omni-Stitch's hands in his own. "This form may be tough," he growled, "but when I figure out how to make those other forms work for me, you won't stand a chance." "Then we'll have to fix that won't we?" said Omni-Stitch. Omni-Stitch yanked his lower arms out of Omnirus' hands and fired two beams into the Omnitrix on his belt. Omnirus roared with pain and let go. Then Omni-Stitch kept up four continuous beams into Omnirus' Omnitrix. Omnirus struggled to break free, but the pain made it impossible for him to move. Suddenly a crack appeared right down the face plate and there was a small explosion. The explosion threw Omnirus back into an escape pod. Omni-Stitch ran over and hit the eject button before Omnirus could get up. The escape pod blasted into space, taking Omnirus with it. "Good riddance to bad rubbish," said Omni-Stitch as his Omnitrix timed out.

Suddenly the door pounded and Commander Korvak's voice was heard shouting, "Open up in the name of Emperor Hamsterviel!" "We have to get out of here!" said Gwen. "Even if we did take the cruiser," said Matt, "they'll gun us down before we go 10 feet." Suddenly there was a familiar vroom and the Shadow Hawk appeared outside the battleship. "Now there's quality pickup service," said Ben and the three of them raced out into the cruiser. The cruiser took off and flew out to the Shadow Hawk, which quickly flew off away from the Imperial ships.

Just then, the Imperial forces had broken through the locked door to the escape pod bay and had seen the Shadow Hawk flew off. Hamsterviel was in front and was now doing a small dance of rage. "Korvak!" he yelled, "you are the worst captain I have ever seen. Not only does the ship practically fall apart, but you let the prisoners escape! You are going to be so fired!" "I'm not fired now?" asked Korvak. "Not yet," said Hamsterviel and he snapped his fingers and said, "Stuff this incompetent mockery of a commander into a cannon and blast him to Mercury!"

As the grunts took a struggling Korvak away, Hamsterviel turned to Silvia and said, "You can have your old position back, but I expect more results from you." As Hamsterviel stormed off, Silvia turned to NegaMorph and said, "You wouldn't have anything to do with the malfunctioning machinery now would you?" "Me? No," said NegaMorph, "if someone was tampering with it, I'd say it was, uh, space gremlins. They're a terrible nuisance." Silvia looked at NegaMorph doubtfully and said, "Well, I'm just going to have to make check for those 'space gremlins'. Fortunately, they didn't cause serious damage." She headed for the door but then paused and said, "But if I do find them, I might want to thank them for helping me get my job back." As she left, NegaMorph's pupil turned slightly grey with pride.

On the Shadow Hawk, Matt, Ben, and Gwen had found that the crew had found their signal on the Imperial battleship and had rushed off to rescue them. Grandpa Max had even gone to make sure Ben and Gwen were alright. "We'll just drop you guys off on Earth and head out again," said Matt. "Finally!" said Techo, "some civilized human company." "It's great to be back here," said Chris, "I wonder if they did anything with my room." He opened the door and the chupacabra jumped out and latched onto his forehead. "OH MY GOD!" he yelled as he tried to pull it off. "Chris, I am so sorry," said Rick. "WHY DO WE STILL HAVE THIS THING?"

Meanwhile, out in outer space, a lone escape pod was zooming through the void. Suddenly the pod's rockets flared and it turned in another direction. Inside the pod, Omnirus had just assumed control over it. "Tennyson," he growled, "I will have my revenge on you. But first, I have to do some training."

* * *

There's the final chapter. Man did this take a long time to write. I hope the next story will be a lot shorter than this one. Speaking of which, largefish8 is having a bit of writer's block so I'll be doing the next one solo. It's going in the Cartoons Crossovers catergory so look there for it. It'll have "Retrieval Saga" in the title. In other news, I'll be updating the bios on my deviantART page soon, so check there. Keep an eye out for my next story and please review. 


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